MBSFA: A Caper in Crimsun
by Lily Winterwood
Summary: With the success of the modern adaptation of Sherlock Holmes, it was only inevitable that the Baker Street Fanfiction Academy would be dragged kicking and screaming into modernity as well. Those fanbrats never saw it coming.
1. HMS Teh Holy Jawnlock

**Title:** A Caper in Crimsun (Because Calling it a Study in Something is Practically a Cliché)  
**Characters/Pairings:** Everyone.  
**Genre:** Humour, Parody, Dramallama  
**Ratings/Warnings:** R because Irene Adler will eventually teach Sex Ed.  
**Summary:** With the success of the modern adaptation of Sherlock Holmes, it was only inevitable that the Baker Street Fanfiction Academy would be dragged kicking and screaming into modernity as well. Those fanbrats never saw it coming.

**Disclaimer:** The BBC adaptation of Sherlock belongs to Moffat, Gatiss, Thompson, and co and are based on the works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The Official Fanfiction University idea belongs to Miss Cam. The original Baker Street Fanfiction Academy belong to Juliet Norrington and Lux Piper. The PPC belongs to Jay, Acacia, and the Boarders. Opinions asserted in this fanfic are stereotypes and all resemblances to real people are merely coincidental. The Course Coordinator and the Head of Student Discipline are not who you think they are but rather loose adaptations of who you think they are.

**Notes:** This fic is cowritten with my partner in crime, **evil-john-watson** on Tumblr. Registration is open but limited (as opposed to my other OFU project, the IAHF); the form is on my Tumblr. Remove the spaces from the link:  
http : / / evil-sherlock-holmes . tumblr . com / post / 22345019743 / the-modern-london-campus-of-the-baker-street

I will accept submissions through both the Tumblr and reviews/PMs on here.

* * *

**A Caper in Crimsun**

**Part I**

It was early evening when a blue doorway flickered into existence right outside 221B Baker Street in Central London and two figures stepped through – two men, both light-haired, one considerably taller than the other.

The shorter one had a more friendly face, but underneath that marshmallow-chiselled exterior he was secretly made of jam, kittens, and rage. On the other hand, the taller man had curly ginger hair, wore Converse trainers and vintage-styled clothing combined in a way that could only mean he got dressed in the dark.

The two men walked up to the door of 221B and rang the buzzer. Almost immediately a middle-aged woman opened it for them, her eyes lighting up as she let them in. Moments later, two other men appeared on the upstairs landing – a tall, dark-haired man who bore a striking resemblance to the tall, ginger-haired man, and his shorter companion who just as easily could have been the spitting image of the shorter man downstairs.

"Mr. Holmes!" the taller man exclaimed with a grin, taking out several sheets of paper and ascending the stairs to pass them over to his lookalike.

"Sherlock," the man called Mr. Holmes retorted as he read through the papers. "This is my friend, John –"

"Dr. Watson, yes, we know," the shorter man said, smiling benignly. "It'll be an honour to serve as your Course Coordinator."

"Or, in the case of Mr. Ben here, Head of Student Discipline," Sherlock remarked with a snicker. "Did you get the Crop of Canonical Characterisation in the post?"

"Just this morning," replied the tall ginger – Mr. Ben, it appeared – as he took out a lethal-looking riding crop from the inside of his vintage jacket. "It's been itching for a test run."

Dr. Watson's eyebrows rose at the sight of the riding crop. "Its name is quite a mouthful," he remarked drily. "Well, shall we introduce you to the others? They've all started bunking at Scotland Yard."

"I'll come along; I've just finished making some nibbles," chipped in the middle-aged woman as she re-emerged from her flat with a covered dish.

"Mrs. Hudson, ever the saint." Dr. Watson smiled at her as he and Sherlock descended the stairs. They quickly left 221B, hailing a nearby cab and managing to squeeze all five of them in.

"The geography of London's been a bit distorted by the Canon," remarked Sherlock en route to Scotland Yard. "People think it takes less than five minutes to get from Baker Street to any given crime scene."

"They didn't have the time to show you and John stuck in traffic," Mr. Ben's companion replied.

"No, thank god," Sherlock rolled his eyes. "Small mercies do exist in the form of rapid transportation."

"Handy escape from pursuing fangirls," chipped in Mr. Ben.

"Tell me more." Sherlock raised an eyebrow at Mr. Ben.

"You have a computer. Surely you've figured it out," Mr. Ben's still-unnamed companion deadpanned.

"Are they really that awful, Marty?" Dr. Watson asked.

The now satisfactorily-named Mr. Marty chuckled darkly. "You've no idea."

* * *

Scotland Yard resembled army barracks at the moment, full of lorries pulling in and out depositing crates and crates of materials.

"You'd think we were preparing for war," Mr. Marty remarked as they passed by a crate labelled DANGEROUS: DO NOT UPSET MINI-HOUNDS. The contents within were glowing worse than Bluebell the Luminescent Rabbit.

"Mini-Hounds?" echoed John, tilting his head at the crate. "What, did Baskerville send in some new experiments?"

"No, John, they're what happens when people misspell our names," Sherlock replied, nodding at a not-so-mini mini-Hound leaping from the back of a lorry. It resembled a Neapolitan Mastiff puppy (albeit this particular one seemed highly overgrown) – that is, if said Neapolitan Mastiff puppy bore red eyes and had recently swallowed a load of radioactive waste.

Said mini-Hound bounded over to them and nuzzled John affectionately. John raised both eyebrows and reached down to pet it. Its fur was soft and silky and tinged lightly with green at the tips.

"That's Jawn, I believe," Sherlock said, nodding at the nametag on the collar. "Everyone purposefully uses this misspelling, so he's become quite large."

"Cute lil' bugger," John remarked, scratching Jawn behind the ears. The mini-Hound followed them into the building, where they were promptly accosted with the words 'I BELIEVE IN SHERLOCK HOLMES' spraypainted across the wall behind the receptionist's desk in the most disturbing combination of hot pink, lime green, and orange.

"That's the legendary Crimsun, correct?" John asked, shielding his eyes as he pointed to the message.

Mr. Marty nodded. "Although I hear you lot might be making your own signature colour?"

At that moment there came a crash and a scream. Without warning, Anderson came tearing through the hall with a look of pure terror on his face.

"What did you do, Anderson, take an IQ test?" Sherlock demanded.

"Forensics lab," snapped the analyst before he rushed away. Sherlock raised his eyebrows but headed off in the direction of said forensics lab nonetheless. John frowned, looked between Sherlock and Messrs. Ben and Marty, and decided to follow Sherlock into the lab.

"Come along," Mrs. Hudson suggested as the consulting detective and the army doctor disappeared 'round the corner. "We've got some introductions to make."

The two newcomers nodded at each other, squared their shoulders, and soldiered on after Mrs. Hudson through the halls of Scotland Yard until they reached Detective Inspector Lestrade's office. Mrs. Hudson knocked and opened the door, revealing Greg Lestrade sitting behind his desk with a doughnut in his hand, Mycroft Holmes sitting across from him twirling his umbrella, and Sergeant Sally Donovan talking to pathologist Molly Hooper next to the nearby filing cabinet.

"This isn't everyone," Mrs. Hudson remarked.

"No, Watson and the Freak aren't here," Sally snapped.

"They've gone to investigate something," Mr. Ben replied. He was shoved aside by Anderson, who rushed into the room with a cup of coffee and a wild-eyed expression. "But there are others missing, still."

"Harry and Clara couldn't make it. Therapy with Ella," Irene Adler's voice cut in as she entered with Jim Moriarty and Kitty Riley. "Mike's tied up at Bart's –"

"Oh, what've you done to him _now_?" Molly demanded.

Irene ignored that. "Kate's coming in a moment, Dimmock's running late, Soo-Lin's avoiding Andy –"

"All right, so we have at least the major players aside from Sherlock and John in here," snapped Mr. Ben, clapping his hands. "Good. Let's begin the introductions. I'm Mr. Ben."

"And I'm Mr. Marty."

Donovan frowned. "You two don't happen to be…"

"The actors? No. Obviously not." Mr. Ben laughed. "But we do look like them, don't we?"

"Scarily so," whispered Molly Hooper, turning pink.

A quick pause. "Well, in any case, we're going to be helping you lot run this campus," Mr. Marty said, coughing slightly. "I'm the Course Coordinator, and Mr. Ben's Head of Student Discipline."

"How exciting," purred Irene, winking at Mr. Ben. He looked away with a chuckle.

At that moment, however, Sherlock came storming into the office, the remains of a silken shirt in his hands.

"I thought I told you lot not to go through my things!" he hissed, directing it pointedly in Anderson's direction. "You can't just waltz into my closet and steal my shirts –"

"You can't withhold evidence!" Anderson retorted.

"Withold evidence of _what_? Of my increased appeal to the fangirls no thanks to Benedict Cumberbatch? What, are you _jealous_?"

Anderson spluttered, his face turning a wondrous shade of Crimsun. The others averted their eyes.

"In any case, this thing's ruined beyond salvation," sighed Sherlock, looking down at it. "What _is_ this colour?"

"I dunno; I combined it with the yellow spray paint left over by the Black Lotus blokes," Anderson admitted. "That plus the purple shirt makes it… well… yellow-purple."

"Congratulations," deadpanned John as he caught up. "You've created Yurple."

* * *

Within the week, in a different form of reality, a young woman named Rose Ellis sat down at her computer and began to write.

Rose Ellis was a Sherlockian. Not the Victorian type, mind you. Not the type with an Irregular Shilling in her pocketbook and a subscription to the _Baker Street Journal_. Not the type who curls up to watch Jeremy Brett and read _The Hounds of the Baskervilles _while wearing a deerstalker and blowing soap bubbles from a pipe. No. Rose Ellis was a fan of the shiny and modern BBC _Sherlock_, and quite frankly one of the worse fans of the lot.

After all, just a couple of days ago she had written and posted a 'wonderful' (in her terms) story where her kick-ass original character Rosie Watson-Holmes had bounced out of nowhere and killed Irene Adler in the name of HMS _Teh Holy Jawnlock_, the Ship to End all Ships. And now our delightful authoress was going to backpedal and attempt to explain why Rosie was the lovechild of John Watson and Sherlock Holmes and why she was sixteen while they were only in their early thirties.

_Hi my name is Rosie Watson-Holmes and this is my story! I'm a sixteen year old girl and I'm the daughter of John and Sherlock! Yeah that's right my daddy John got pregnant_ –

"Hold up. Hold up! How is that even biologically possible!" someone demanded. Startled, Rose whirled around in her chair to gape at the woman standing behind her, reading her writing over her shoulder. Recognising her, the rabid fangirl's face broke into a scowl.

"SARAH SAWYER YOU SLUT, GET AWAY FROM MY JOHNLOCK!"

The woman, Sarah Sawyer, blinked. "Oh wow, you lot are more militant than I thought."

Rose crossed herself. "What do you want? What do you want, huh? I'm not backing down! I will have my –"

"You've been accepted," snapped Sarah, crossing her arms and scowling at the fangirl, "to the Baker Street Fanfiction Academy, Modern London Campus."

"What?" Rose demanded, frowning.

"I'm not repeating myself!" huffed Sarah, pulling a giant envelope coloured in the ugliest combination of hot pink, lime green, and orange. Rose gingerly took it from Sarah, handling it as if she had been handed one of Moriarty's bombs.

"Tell me I'm hallucinating," she snapped, staring at the envelope. It read ROSE ELLIS, COMPUTER DESK, HER ROOM, and the rest of her address in spidery capital letters. "Are you guys _stalking_ me? That's creepy!"

"We also read your fanfiction and laugh about your terrible writing," retorted Sarah. "Fill it out quickly; I'm going to help myself to some tea."

"I don't have tea."

"Shame on you." Sarah left the room; Rose turned to the horrendous envelope, reached in, and pulled out equally horrendously-coloured forms.

"What the hell is this colour?" she demanded as she grabbed her purple – purple for the shirt of sex! Yay! – pen and began to read.

_The Baker Street Fanfiction Academy, Modern London Campus  
221B Baker Street, London_

_Dear Fanwriter,_

_It is with a heavy heart that we take up our pens to inform you that you have been accepted at the Baker Street Fanfiction Academy, Modern London Campus (Modern Baker Street Fanfiction Academy for short). However, this is an acceptance letter that you cannot refuse, because whether or not you want to you will attend a semester at the MBSFA to learn how to write good fanfiction for the _ BBC Sherlock _fandom. And chances are you will want to come, because your professors will be the characters themselves. Do not irritate them or the mini-Hounds, because you will regret it otherwise._

_MBSFA is a selective and very small offshoot of the 1895 Baker Street Fanfiction Academy, and you will be one of only a hundred students attending the first semester. Passing one semester and the exit examinations are mandatory for you to obtain your license to write more_ BBC Sherlock _fanfiction. With that at stake, please fill out the attached form and sign the waiver. We hope we will not see your face at the MBSFA tomorrow._

_From,  
Mr. Ben, Head of Student Discipline  
Mr. Marty, Course Coordinator_

Rose got to the form and began filling it out, frowning at the odd questions. Why were they asking for her species? Why did they need to know about her worst fears? And who the hell cared about the original stories written by some old dead geezer from the boring Victorian era? Modern Sherlock was just so much cooler!

Rose viciously wrote 'IRENE ADLER AND ANY BITCH WHO GETS IN THE WAY OF MAH JAWNLOCK' under the question for her least favourite character, predictably answered 'JAWNLOCK THEY NEED TO BE TOGETHER FOREVER' for favourite ship, and replied with 'ANYTHING ELSE INVOLVING SHERLOCK AND JAWN NOT BEING TOGETHER' for least favourite ship.

Had she written porn? Rose frowned, and then remembered the fic she wrote a couple months ago of Sherlock using the riding crop on John in a way that a riding crop should not be used. She blushed and grinned and answered in the affirmative.

The next question made her bristle. Rosie was not a Mary Sue! She wasn't! Everyone was just jealous of her! She could hear Sarah returning, so she quickly continued along until she hit the 'characterise the following characters in six words' question.

_Sherlock Holmes: Yummy sex god with gorgeous cheekbones!_

_John Watson: Snuggly hedgehog and Sherlock's true love!_

_Mycroft Holmes: Fat cakesexual brother sleeping with Lestrade!_

_Greg Lestrade: Not my division – go ask Mycroft!_

Satisfied with the rest of her answers, Rose then turned to the giant block of text known as the waiver. Naturally, her eyes skimmed right over it, not noticing the rather ominous and threatening messages hidden within its lines.

_Permission Waiver for MBSFA_

_By signing below, I hereby resign myself to a long and gruelling semester of terror, hatred, and fear at the MBSFA and thus waive my rights to sue them for any damages inflicted upon me during said semester (and possibly beyond). As I Learn through Pain how to write good, or decent, or semi-decent, or meh-ish, or at the very least comprehensible BBC Sherlock fanfiction, I will acknowledge that any pain or trauma – physical, mental, or emotional – inflicted upon my person by the Staff members or the mini-Hounds is for my own good and I deserve it because of my own stupidity or irrationality. I can always complain to Messrs. Ben and Marty, but they will laugh and send me back for more._

_By signing this waiver, I put myself into the hands of the MBSFA Staff and will now waive all personal rights ever granted to me. The Staff are hereby given the right to do to me as they see fit, which includes but is not limited to mental and emotional abuse, torture, and death. This contract will be legally binding the moment I sign this and will not break even in the event of my death because the MBSFA will most likely be able to resurrect me. I will not be allowed to leave the campus until I pass the courses and obtain my license, and dropping out will involve a lengthy bureaucratic process that would annoy even Mycroft Holmes so therefore Mr. Marty will not drop me unless I provide a particularly good case. Chances are I am not reading this contract at all, because I am far too excited at the prospect of being taught by my lust objects or getting the chance to Canon-ise my favourite ships to read this. Besides, I am just a foolish fanbrat about to give MBSFA my soul, and I regret absolutely nothing._

_(Oh look, did that just go over your head? Well, sign automatically on the space provided, and thank you for making this a very efficient and painless procedure!)_

_From,  
Messrs. Ben and Marty, Head of Student Discipline and Course Coordinator_

By the time Sarah Sawyer returned from wherever she went with a cup of whatever she got instead of tea, Rose had quite effectively signed away her soul to the establishment. With a grin, the doctor took the papers from her and tucked them back into the plothole.

"What next?" Rose asked, but then she noticed that her keyboard looked extremely comfortable. Sarah shrugged.

"Sleep's always nice, I think," she replied. "You could do that."

By the time Rose fell asleep, Sarah Sawyer had disappeared, and Rose's story about Rosie Watson-Holmes was utterly destroyed.

* * *

"Jawnlock. Wow, that's disturbing now," Mr. Marty snorted as he read through the student registration forms.

"What's so disturbing about it?" Sherlock asked innocently as he scratched Jawn behind the ears. Jawn slobbered all over him.

Mr. Marty looked at them, laughed bitterly, and continued to read. "You're provoking me."

"Jawn is a very loveable mini-Hound," Sherlock retorted drily. "But in all seriousness, though, where is John?"

"Being crushed under the weight of a thousand jars of jam," Mr. Marty replied offhandedly. "You know how it is. Ever since Kate Beaton drew that comic strip…"

"Didn't help that the rail bloke in 'The Great Game' referred to blood and brains as strawberry jam," John added from the doorway. He looked slightly winded.

"Got away from the jam?" Sherlock asked, flicking his eyes up and down his friend's body. "Ah. Ran into Shelrock, did you?"

"What gave it away?"

"The fact that Shelrock is literally as hard as stone, which accounts for those lovely bruises all over your face," Sherlock replied with a grin. "That and he drools viciously enough to put the Reichenbach to shame."

"We are not talking about Reichenbach," snarled John.

"We aren't," Sherlock pointed out, grinning. "At least, not the one from our Canon –"

"I can't believe you just –"

"Shush!" Mr. Marty glared at them. "Take your discussion of what happened during Reichenbach somewhere else!"

The two glared at each other. "Fine," huffed John. "We'll discuss it later. Hey, Mr. Ben!" He waved at the passing Head of Student Discipline. "What are you doing with those crates? I thought the shipments of mini-Hounds ended on Wednesday!"

"No, no, these are hedgehogs and otters," Mr. Ben replied with a snicker. "I was thinking about training them to attack incoming students. Care to help?"

Sherlock grinned and got up, wiping excess Jawn-drool from his trousers. He and John then followed Mr. Ben and the animals down the hall.


	2. Isn't Rache Becoming a Bit Overused?

**Notes:** For future reference, "Holmesian" in this fic refers to people who prefer ACD Sherlock over BBC Sherlock, and "Sherlockian" refers to people who prefer BBC Sherlock over ACD Sherlock. In real life, "Holmesian" and "Sherlockian" are British and American terms for Sherlock Holmes fans, respectively.  
Feel free to report any mini-Hounds you see running around other fanfics/the fandom in general.

* * *

**Part II**

"_Oh, papa, papa, it's perfect!" Rosie Watson-Holmes gushed as she held up the striped jumper-dress. Not only was it a UK jumper, it was also a US jumper! Simply the best of both worlds!_

"_It was on sale at Topshop," John Watson replied, blushing happily and effeminately. "Thought it'd look nice with your gorgeous blonde hair."_

"_Oh, I love you so much papa!" Rosie launched herself at her father, engulfing him in a hug – _

BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP!

Rose's eyes snapped open in shock and horror. "Shit!" she screamed as she saw the killer black cab rushing at her with the crazy killer cabbie Jeff Hope behind the wheel. Scrambling to her feet, Rose rushed out of the street, tripped over the kerb, and nearly faceplanted on the pavement in front of a block of flats.

Catching her breath, the girl straightened up and turned around to look around her.

Cabs and cars were moving to and fro from the busy Central London street, but this wasn't Baker Street as it was in the actual London. She'd been to Baker Street with her crazy Holmesian uncle (her mum's side of the family were all crazy Holmesians, and had named their children Mycroft, Sherlock, and Irene. This crazy uncle in question's name was Mycroft) and she knew there wasn't a Speedy's Café next to 221B.

(It also goes to say that her mum often sobbed over her Sherlockian daughter and wondered where Rose got the idea that John and Sherlock's bedroom exploits were much more important than the cases.)

"Oh. My. God," Rose gasped as the situation hit her with all the speed of a speeding taxi. She then staggered back, because Jeff Hope had purposefully gone out of his way to hit her to the pavement. John wasn't lying; Hope was a bloody awful cabbie. "Please tell me I'm dreaming."

But the pain felt real enough. Rose wondered if there was going to be internal bleeding.

"You all right?" a nearby Tribble demanded. Rose blinked, obviously confusing it for a hedgehog.

"Are you Martin Freeman?" she asked the Tribble, and it bristled. Adorably. Just like John.

"No, I'm Mischa Byrne!" the Tribble snapped, but by that time Rose was already mentally calling her Hedgie.

"But you're, like, this adorable little hedgehog and I want to squeeze you –"

"There's a difference between a hedgehog and a Tribble!" bawled Mischa.

Oh no! Hedgie was sad! Rose leant forward and patted her, cooing, "It's all right, little Hedgie, it's all –"

"I'm Mischa!" wailed the Tribble. "I'm really human, but I put down Tribble on the form as a joke and now everyone's calling me a hedgehog or John or Martin Freeman and it's not fair!"

"Wait, you mean to say you're _not_ Martin Freeman?" demanded a very short girl with auburn hair and freckles.

Rose clambered to her feet again and looked at the people gathered around the entrance to the block of flats across from 221B. These flats had been destroyed in "The Great Game", but they'd obviously rebuilt since then – and to be honest, Rose thought they could easily collapse again.

"Dorm assignments!" someone barked. The crowd of people parted to let through one of Sherlock's Homeless Network members and a tall, gangly man with a face like Voldemort's.

"What's the _Golem_ doing here?" someone demanded.

"Shh!" An odd silence fell on Rosie's fellow students as the Golem taped a set of rosters to the doors leading into the flats.

The Homeless Network member turned around and clapped her hands. "Listen up, fanstudents! The people you are paired with on those rosters will be your dormmates for the entire semester! The flats within this building have been resized to twins; there should be enough for all of you. Supplies and timetables are in your rooms. Keys are in the reception – take only the key that goes to your room. Mycroft's watching you, so don't bother taking someone else's key. He will know."

Some of the students giggled. "HI MYCROFT!" a girl with short dark brown hair and oval glasses yelled. "HOW'S LESTRADE?"

"Ew, Mystrade!" a much plumper girl with ginger hair whined.

"What'd you say about Mystrade? I hope we're not roomies! I will cut you!" the first girl snarled.

"SILENCE!" barked the woman as the Golem cracked his knuckles. The fangirls (and approximately three fanboys) shuddered and fell silent. "Under no circumstances will we replace your key if you happen to lose it. Guard it like you would your life. Now, orientation will begin at Bart's in about half an hour; that'll be enough time to get everything squared away. If you have issues with dorm assignments, take your complaints to Mr. Marty. He won't move you, though, unless there is someone willing to trade."

Rose crossed her fingers and hoped she wouldn't end up rooming with one of those snobby_ Holmesians_. As if growing up with three of them wasn't bad enough.

"Any questions?" demanded the homeless woman. "No? Good." She marched off, the Golem trailing after her like an obedient puppy. It was a bit surreal.

The students quickly scrambled for the door. Rosie managed to elbow her way to the front, peering up to look for her name. She spotted it next to the name "Melissa Abberline" and the room number "413". Entering the reception, Rose fetched her keys and managed to squeeze into a lift ascending to the fourth floor.

"What room are you in?" A girl with cropped red hair demanded as they paused on the first floor to let some people out. "I'm in room 221! So excited!"

"Lucky!" several people chorused. Another girl perked at that.

"I'm in room 221 as well!" she squealed. "Aviva Von Lilite! What's your name?"

"Mariah Black! I'm a Timelord!"

"Yeah, right," one of the boys whispered. Mariah sent him a withering glare.

"Are you going to be the Sherlock to my John or the John to my Sherlock?" she demanded of her new roommate. A pause ensued.

A very, very long pause ensued.

"You're one of _them_?" Aviva whispered, voice deadly.

"One of what?" Mariah asked.

"One of those_ insufferable_ Johnlock shippers," replied Aviva.

Mariah blinked, stunned. "You mean there are people who _don't _ship_ Johnlock_?"

"You guys, we've been on floor two for like the past five minutes! Get yourselves and your stupid sexual tension out of this lift!" one of the boys hollered at that very moment, causing the roommates to whirl about in shock and then quickly scramble out of the lift while denying any forms of sexual tension whatsoever to each other and all people around them. Was it, like, a rule in this place that all roommates or flatmates or dormmates should have sexual tension flagrant enough to cause shipping wars?

(It was probably a universal rule of narration, but that's neither here nor there.)

Rose stopped off at the fourth floor, the very top floor of the building. Each floor had twenty-five twin rooms, which meant that if one actually bothered to do the math one would realise that the building could sleep two hundred people. And that meant that there were fifty unoccupied rooms. But Rose had no idea what a school for a hundred people would do with fifty unoccupied twin rooms, so she decided to ignore it for the time being.

She entered hers, and immediately noted that her roommate had a hedgehog necklace.

Well, there _were _worse people to be roommates with. She pitied Mariah.

"You must be Rose Ellis!" chirped Melissa Abberline, extending a hand with a grin. "I'm Melissa!"

"I know," Rose replied, shaking Melissa's hand and noting that she'd taken the bed closer to the window. "Where are the bathrooms around here?"

"Communal, down the hall," Melissa replied, wrinkling her nose. "Separate facilities, thank god. But this is a co-ed dorm, and the boys are on the first floor –"

"There were boys in the lift beyond the first floor," Rose pointed out, wondering whether or not there were empty rooms on the ground floor as well.

"They're idiots," sniffed Melissa. "One of them tried to hit on me. I think his name was Elijah?"

"Cheerful," Rose remarked, plopping down onto the bed. "Please tell me you ship Johnlock."

"I do. Problem?"

"No, not with Johnlock! Never with Johnlock!" Rose exclaimed, staring up at the ceiling. "They're, like, perfect! And meant to be! And stuff! But one of the girls in room 221 doesn't like Johnlock and it makes me sad!"

"Okay?" Melissa shrugged, picking up one of the books and hefting it gingerly in her arms. "Dear god, Molly expects us to read_ all_ of this?"

"What's that?" Rose bolted upright and leant over to take a peek at Melissa's enormous tome. "That's like… a med school textbook! What the hell –"

"She's teaching the Anatomies and Autopsies class," Melissa pointed out, waving her timetable. "Friday afternoon after Sex Ed with Irene Adler."

"Ewwww," Rose whined, wrinkling her nose. "Ewwww, the bitch in the way of my Johnlock."

"You've obviously never met Mary Morstan," sniffed Melissa.

"Mary who?"

"She was, in the original stories, Watson's wife."

Rose's mouth fell open. "Oh my god, I hate her already."

"Well, I mean, she was pretty cool about him hanging out with Sherlock all the time, but I think she's pretty useless otherwise. Too flat, you know?" Melissa turned her attention to her other books. "Ooh, the Science of Deduction!"

"Isn't that Sherlock's blog?"

"In the original stories he wrote a treatise – hang on, you haven't read the original stories?"

Rose frowned. "I have them, but no."

"You poor, deprived thing." Melissa sniggered. "You've no idea how much you're missing!"

"Well, I know I'm not missing Benedict Cumberbatch's awe-inspiring cheekbones, so I'm fine."

Melissa rolled her eyes. "Whatever floats your boat." She looked over at the clock. "Shit, ten minutes 'till orientation. We gotta go hail a cab to Bart's."

* * *

St. Bartholomew's Hospital once housed several medical schools, long since incorporated into the City University. However, the hospital still sported several lecture halls in the Robin Brook Centre adjacent to the hospital's Great Hall.

Into the Morris Lecture Theatre at the Robin Brook Centre poured the students. At the podium stood Detective Inspector Lestrade and Molly Hooper, the two of them talking in hushed tones and garnering squeals of delight from the Molstrade shippers. The Mystrade shippers hissed.

"Did you know there's a pathology museum in this building?" a girl with dirty blonde hair demanded. "I just came back from looking around in it; it's really amazing!"

Rose raised her eyebrows, but then quickly quashed her curiosity by reminding herself that dead bodies were gross and she'd much rather read porn than casefics because there were less dead bodies in porn than casefics.

"Ahem!" Lestrade cleared his throat as the last of the students trickled in. He tapped the microphone on the podium. "Is this working? Yes?"

"Yes, it is working!" the Mystrade shipper girl from earlier exclaimed. "I love you Greg!"

Lestrade raised both eyebrows.

"Yeah, you're super dishy! What a silver fox!" another girl yelled. "Rupert Graves is good at football and he has five children!"

Lestrade coughed uncomfortably. "Hah, well, yes, um. Hello. Can I please have your attention? Yes? Thank you. My name is Detective Inspector Lestrade, and this is my colleague Molly Hooper."

The Molstrade shippers giggled.

"Hi!" Molly chipped in. "Hi, and welcome to the Baker Street Fanfiction Academy, Modern London Campus!"

"Wrong!" someone snapped from the screened-off portion behind the speakers. Excited murmurs wafted through the students. Was that Sherlock who just said it?

"Oh, what is it?" groaned Lestrade, turning around and addressing the screen. "If you're so bothered about us trying to be polite citizens here, why don't you greet them yourself?"

"You know perfectly why I can't, Lestrade," the voice retorted.

"No. No, I don't. Enlighten me, Holmes."

More happy squealing. "SHERLY-WHERLY, YOU'RE A SEX GOD!" someone screamed.

"That would be precisely why I am refusing to budge from my seat," Sherlock grumbled. "Shut _up_, John."

"What? I'm imagining you with the name 'Sherly-Wherly' and all I get is a ridiculously funny mental image," John Watson's voice retorted from behind the screen. The Johnlock shippers, Rose included, sighed in happiness.

"JOHN, YOU DIRTY, DIRTY HEDGEHOG!" Mischa the not-hedgehog hollered. "JUST JUMP SHERLOCK'S BONES ALREADY!" Immediately all of the non-Johnlock shippers hissed at her, and the distinct sound of John Watson hitting his head against the screen repeatedly could be heard over the din, coupled by Sherlock's laughter.

"Calm down, calm down!" Lestrade sighed, tapping the microphone to get everyone's attention again. "All right. Once again, _welcome_ to the Baker Street Fanfiction Academy, Modern London Campus. I'm Lestrade, this is Molly – you should know who we are, though, so I don't know why I bother introducing myself – and I'd like to introduce you to your Course Coordinator and Head of Student Discipline."

"A note of warning, though," added Molly as Messrs Ben and Marty emerged from the screened-off portion of the stage, "they aren't who you think they are –"

"OH MY GOD IT'S BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH!" one of the boys yelled. He then turned several shades of pink and clapped his hands to his mouth. "I mean, oh my god, it's someone who looks like…"

Mr. Ben snorted. "Hello. I'm Mr. Ben, Head of Student Discipline –"

"Oh man, I'd love to get disciplined by him," someone giggled.

"And I'm Mr. Marty, Course Coordinator," chipped in Mr. Marty before things could get even more awkward. "We're not very pleased to meet you."

"No, not at all." Mr. Ben chuckled darkly. "You see, all of you are here for the same purpose – to learn how to write good BBC Sherlock fanfiction. Not that the letter didn't already give that away, but still. It bears repeating. Your stories suck."

Rose bristled in her seat. How dare they insinuate that her stories were bad? She'd spent countless hours shedding sweat and blood and tears over the tale of her darling Rosie, thank-you-very-much!

"During this entire semester, we intend to turn all of that around with a very intensive schedule of classes and possible weekend seminars," continued Mr. Marty. "They're already on your timetables in your dorms. Failure to regularly attend each and every single class on that sheet will result in Pain."

The way he capitalised the word "pain" sent shivers (and not necessarily the good kind) down Rose's back.

"Let's cover our other ground rules, while we're at it." Mr. Ben smiled, shark-like. Rose wondered if he had purposefully filed his teeth into points. "Rule number one: no glomping, flashing, or stampeding the Staff members. _Especially _the teaching staff."

Disappointed groans. "But I just wanna show John how much I wuv him!" whined the auburn-haired girl from earlier.

"…_No thank you_," John's voice echoed from behind the screen.

"You just need to marry me already!" simpered the girl. Rose snorted. As much as she liked John for his cuddly jumpers and general adorableness, she very much preferred the hot, smouldering Sherlock Holmes, thank-you-very-much –

"Um, yes, thank you, Miss… Ellis, was it? We're not here to talk about your problems," snapped Mr. Ben, causing Rose to turn five different shades of red. "Moving on! Rule number two: absolutely no writing fanfiction unless instructed to do so by the Staff!"

"The majority of your classes will take place at Bart's, with some additional ones at Roland Kerr," agreed Mr. Marty. "There is a computer lab here with a printer for your homework needs. Plus, you have access to all parts of London covered in the Canon, except –"

"Except 221B, the Diogenes Club, Irene's house in Belgravia, and Scotland Yard, obviously, and some laboratories at Bart's," cut in Mr. Ben. "Anything labelled as 'Staff Only' and guarded by mini-Hounds belongs to the Staff Section and under no circumstances are you allowed to enter without permission from the Staff!"

"That's rule number three," agreed Mr. Marty. "The Staff section is off-limits. Off. Limits."

"What about Baskerville?" someone asked.

"Baskerville's technically Staff-only as well, mostly because we're still working out the kinks over there," Mr. Marty explained. "Moving on. Rule four: Provoke the minis, and you will regret it."

"Extend that to the hedgehogs and otters," added Mr. Ben. "They've been trained to bite fangirls."

"There are additional rules, but they do get rather specific and you will learn them on your own time." Mr. Marty coughed again. "Violation of any of those four main rules will result in Pain as well. Now for some pointers."

"Firstly, do not bring up 'Alone on the Water'. Yes, we have read it. Yes, some of us have cried over it. Enough is enough."

"Count that in for every other fandom-famous fic out there," agreed Mr. Marty. "Next. Absolutely no bashing of CBS's _Elementary_. They're not us, we're not them, and whatever problems they may have are their problems and should not affect us. Wait for the thing to air before you bomb it. In the meantime, be polite."

"Third, keep the ship wars to a minimum. We don't want Moriarty to start selling weapons and for students to start dying. That would be counter-productive."

"Fourth…" Mr. Marty consulted his notes. "Well, obviously you need to complete all assignments for your classes. That's rather the point. If you want to pass this school at all, you pay attention in class. That should be it."

"We'll notify you if anything new comes up on these lists," agreed Mr. Ben.

"Dismissed," they chorused, allowing Lestrade to reclaim the podium. The students started to get up, but the Detective Inspector barked at them to get back down immediately so he could notify them about meals.

"Dinner is in an hour! The cafeteria at Bart's is open to students only during mealtimes, as well as Speedy's, Angelo's, those Chinese restaurants, and so on. If you're extremely picky you could utilise the communal kitchen on each floor of your dorms to make your own food. Tesco's is open for groceries, and each student has a bank account at the Strand that deposits supply tickets. Those are your passes to get food around here. No ticket, no supplies. So remember how to access those things." He paused. "And no stealing, either. You know you're being watched."

"Is the Underground open?" a tall boy with messy short brown hair asked.

"Only for access to different parts of London. Train station goes to Baskerville, and you're not allowed on it yet. You have oyster cards in your dorms. Unlimited use, but no replacements if you lose them." Lestrade looked at Molly. "What else?"

"I think that should be it," Molly agreed. "Welcome to London!"

* * *

"Anything to eat?" demanded John later as he and Sherlock stumbled back into their flat. "I'm starving."

"Remains of takeaway from yesterday next to the feet," Sherlock replied brusquely as he took off his scarf. "You have our lesson plans?"

"Mm, yes." John was heating up the leftovers in the microwave. "Strange, isn't it?"

"What's strange?"

"Meeting the people who write stories about us. You know… us. Getting it on. And stuff."

"Problem?"

"You don't seem very disturbed." John took out the leftovers and scooped them into a bowl that he hoped was clean.

"I'm not very concerned about them right now." Sherlock crossed over to his laptop. "The mini-Hounds come in handy, after all."

"Yeah, three new ones just spawned today. Morarty, irrene, and SSherlock." Sherlock patted the head of the mini-Hound named SSherlock as he padded by slobbering on the rug.

"I could've sworn I saw Jawn grow a couple more inches," added John with a sigh as he began to eat.

At that moment, though, Sherlock's mobile rang. He answered it, raised his eyebrows, and promptly hang up.

"Lestrade?"

"Obviously," Sherlock replied, getting up again. "Come on, off to Scotland Yard. We've got another case."

The cab swiftly transported them to Scotland Yard without any significant incidents, and no students were nearby lurking around for their Lust Objects as they piled out and rushed into the Yard.

"Where?" Sherlock demanded as soon as he saw Lestrade walking past the receptionist's desk with the giant Crimsun message. Anderson and Donovan followed him; they grimaced in his direction but said nothing scathing.

"Alleyway not too far from here. Not a student, not Staff. Would've looked like suicide had there not been a message near the body."

"And what's the message?"

Lestrade grimaced. "Rache."


	3. Deduction for Dummies

**Notes:** Still plenty of spots left on registration – send in the fanbrats!

* * *

**Part III**

"Got anything?" Lestrade asked as Sherlock straightened up from the body and averted his eyes from the bright Crimsun message scrawled above it.

"What do you have?" Sherlock asked, raising an eyebrow. "You said he wasn't a student or a Staff member – well, I _would_ know if he was a Staff member, but –"

"Well, according to the reports he's a boy attending the local university. Name's Hamish, Hamish Wilson."

John raised both eyebrows. "Related to Jennifer Wilson?"

"Nope, not that we know of yet. He died only a couple of hours ago, roughly around the time of the orientation. So, what've you got, Sherlock?" Lestrade asked.

"Obviously the victim was killed by a sharp blow to the back of the head by a blunt object. Rigor mortis setting in, not exactly helping the look of terror on his face – must've seen his attacker or known that he was going to die. New to the university, went south for school. Possibly concentrating in literature or linguistics, recently stopped at a café and chatted up a girl."

Lestrade quirked an eyebrow, daring Sherlock to explain. Sherlock rolled his eyes and looked around for any lurking fangirls. Luckily they were all still eating dinner.

"Look at the state of his jumper. School colours, school logo. Brand new, recently bought, very thin for this time of year. He probably didn't feel the cold as keenly as others, but wanted something school-spirited anyway. Pocket contents show a schedule for a seminar in Shakespearean literature as well as a napkin with a number on it. Napkin from the local café with a phone number written in a distinctly female hand and lip gloss stains. Now the question is, why him and why a blunt object?"

"Maybe he –"

"We can't jump to conclusions. We need data. Call the girl who wrote him her number."

"All right, and what about the message?"

"Message obviously left behind by the killer. Crimsun spray paint similar to the type in the reception at Scotland Yard; I'll ask Raz about it."

"You'll do what?" Donovan demanded.

"Do I look like a street artist to you? No? Thought so. I'm painting; I need advice."

"Again," muttered John. "Sure it's not from the same guys who made that yellow spray paint?"

"I won't repeat it again, John – _we cannot jump to conclusions_."

"Fine." Lestrade put one hand on his hips as he dialled the number on the napkin with his other. "What about the message, then. Do you think it means anything? I mean, in 'A Study in Pink' the 'Rache' meant 'Rachel' –"

"I don't think it means that this time," Sherlock muttered as he tried to examine the message without staring too intently at it for too long. "But it all goes back to a lack of evidence."

* * *

News of the murder and the message spread throughout campus. By the time classes commenced on Monday, there was not a single soul in London who didn't know about the murder.

"How long d'you reckon it'll take for Sherlock to figure it out?" Megan 'Yuki' Vaughan asked Melissa and Rose as they walked to Sherlock's classroom at Bart's on Monday morning. Everyone around them was excitedly murmuring about Sherlock teaching them deduction.

"Soon, I hope!" Dasha Lynch squealed. "Hopefully before any of us get hurt!"

"I bet he'd let some of us die first," snorted Cale Serfe, sticking her nose in the air as she marched past Rose into the classroom. "Just so he could get more data."

"He's not like that!" Rose snapped.

"Yes, he can be," Cale retorted, rolling her eyes. "You know he hates us."

"I'm sure really deep down he cares about us!" Dasha Lynch reasoned. "Really, really, really, really deep down in the bottom of his heart…"

"You'd need a microscope to find it." Cale laughed and took her seat.

"Oh god, oh god, Deductions for Dummies!" squealed Kass Wan as she shoved past Rose into the room. "Oh my god, I can't wait!" Her sentiments were readily echoed by all of the other members of 'Sherlock's Ladies' (inherited from the Victorian-era BSFA, even if there were several guys in the group as well).

Rose shuffled into the room and found herself sitting next to a boy with curly brown hair and light brown eyes. He was consulting his copy of the _Science of Deduction_, brows furrowed over the text. Rose huffed and tried to drown out the extremely loud voice of Jamie Valocca, self-proclaimed leader of Sherlock's Ladies.

(The group had coalesced at Angelo's on the first night, and while Jamie – or Jinx – had declared herself the leader few people actually wanted her leading them because she was such a rabid Adlerlock fangirl that it didn't take much deduction to figure out that she liked Adlerlock for the vicarious living.)

"Just you wait! I'm terribly smart; he'll obviously fall in love with me!" Jinx was screaming as she flounced into the room, a red-faced Mariah Black following her.

"You're totally not Sherlock's type, stupid!" the Timelord – or Time Lady, it may appear – retorted as she took a seat right near the podium.

"Bitch, that's my seat!" Jinx looked on the verge of tears. Rose vaguely wondered why she was leading Sherlock's Ladies if she hated all other Sherlock fangirls.

"Why the hell do you even like him?" drawled the voice of Clay Bristol from the back. "He's such a horse-faced dipshit in this verse. What a load of crap."

At that all of Sherlock's Ladies sprung to their feet, Rose included. "You take that back!" she hollered. "You take that back, you stupid meanie –"

"As lovely as it is to hear the lot of you attempt to defend my honour, I will insist that you all cease and desist and get into your seats. Now," Sherlock's voice resounded from the doorway, causing everyone to turn towards him. Moments later, the imposing consulting detective strode in and removed his scarf (Megan Vaughan fainted). "Miss Ellis, detention. Stay after class for further information."

"Detention with Sherlock!" whispered Jinx in half-reverence, half-scorn. "Lucky!"

Sherlock frowned at her. "You do realise Ms. Adler barely appears in the original stories outside 'A Scandal in Bohemia'?" he snapped.

"I only read the parts with her and – wait a minute, how'd you…"

"You're obviously one of my… fangirls… and you've purposely coiffed your hair like Ms. Adler's for this class. Plus the makeup –" but he didn't get to finish his sentence, because Jinx had fainted dead away, right across her desk. Obviously having Sherlock deduce her was far too much for her poor fangirl heart. Rose snickered.

Sherlock coughed. "Deduction!" he snapped. "This is Deduction for Dummies, a class in which you are required to observe, not merely see. It will help your fanfiction greatly if you yourself can figure out what the components of my deductions are and how to string one for yourself."

He turned to the whiteboard and wrote 'Deduction for Dummies' across it with blue marker. "Let's take it from the very beginning and take apart the title of this course," he continued, eyes scanning the crowd, scrutinising the faces of various students. Rose felt her knees go weak.

"Deduction," stated Sherlock as he underlined the word, "is the result of deductive reasoning. It is the process that uses small basic truths to reveal an equally true conclusion. When you have used logical reasoning to eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."

A pause. Rose remembered him saying a variant of this line in 'The Hounds of Baskerville', but aside from that she wasn't sure why he paused or why he was looking around at the students. Near the back of the room, Renee Robins sat up slightly straighter. Next to her, Clay Bristol sneered at the reference.

Sherlock continued after a moment of glaring in Clay's direction – Rose was pretty sure she saw the boy mouth 'gay' at him. "There are several laws and theories that are related to the study of deductive reasoning that I could mention, but this is 'Deductions for Dummies' so I will refrain from covering theory as I doubt it will stay in your unfortunate little brains. Now, in the areas of Criminal Justice and Investigations, knowledge of more than basic biological sciences is essential. It is possible to solve a murder without understanding how the victim was killed when you have medical personnel doing their duty, but with people like Anderson existing it will be much easier to have your own knowledge to fall back on. In that same vein, knowledge of practical scientific truths, chemistry, biology, and even geography, will further your deductive abilities. Social sciences, while not quite necessary, are quite helpful to better understand motives and methods."

Rose groaned. She hated school. She especially hated science class, since her teacher preferred spending her time rambling about aliens and the rain dance instead of actually teaching. It wasn't that she wanted to learn – banish the thought! Why learn at school when one could read Johnlock smut? – it was more that she hated teachers who went off on random tangents for more than three minutes.

But Sherlock was speaking again. "General secondary school mathematical knowledge is highly conductive to logical thought, should you actually use said knowledge. Mental maths, while impractical in the classroom setting, is invaluable everywhere else."

"Ew, maths," someone whispered.

"And finally," continued Sherlock, raising an eyebrow at the commenter, "an in-depth knowledge of criminal law and the annals of crime are crucial to success in forensic deductions. You must be able to remember the _modus operandi_ of various killers, connect the dots between seemingly unrelated crimes, retrieve information from past crimes to help investigate current crimes. Like all things, the history of crime is just a wheel. It turns, and the same spokes come up. Nothing is ever new."

And finishing that, he started writing on the board once more. "A deduction follows logical pathways and functions almost like science experiments – you must observe, you must obtain data, you must test various theories until you have narrowed the possibilities down to one."

"Is it like Cluedo?" asked Levee.

Sherlock's expression twisted. "Cluedo only presents the most rudimentary of logical processes and sports flawed rules. The victim could have done it. One mustn't rule that out."

Rose giggled. She loved Cluedo! Even if she never won against her Holmesian family members. Those guys were _brutal _with each other.

"Copy what I've written on the board," snapped Sherlock at that moment, causing the entire class to scramble for note paper and writing utensils. "Deduction requires a broad general knowledge of science, maths, social sciences, and people in general. It requires an open mind, to come up with all possible theories in order to test probabilities and narrow down the field. It requires a logical mind, one that will rapidly progress down and understand trains of thought without many diversions. It requires observation with all senses – even the smell and touch of things may give clues. From a giant mess of details, the deductive mind must be able to pick out the threads leading to the solution."

He leaned on the podium for a moment, ostensibly to allow them to copy down what he wrote on the board in capital letters. Rose quickly finished so she could, ahem, _observe_ him; he was staring at the still-unconscious form of Jinx.

"Before we get into examples of deductions and how to construct one, I would like to notify you that your homework for this class tonight is to write a deduction on your roommate. No cheating by asking questions – you know you are being watched." Sherlock smirked evilly before levelling his gaze at the boy sitting next to Rose. "Elijah Smith, correct?"

The boy started. "Yes, sir!" he exclaimed hastily, cheeks turning pink.

"Swimmer, am I correct?"

"Yes!"

"Studying criminal justice. Strong moral principles, wants to protect and defend. Possibly an aspiring policeman."

"How –"

"I noticed when you took out your notepaper that you had a book on criminal justice borrowed from the West Kensington Library and already bookmarked in various places. You know the topic well already. Your striped jumper may be an unconscious association with your favourite character – John – and your body language cements that association. Here you are, in a classroom being taught by a high-functioning sociopath – and you look at ease compared to my fangirls – who seem ready to pounce on me – Mr. Bristol – who seems ready to punch me – and everyone else – who seem ready to run out of here screaming."

Elijah blinked. "Fantastic," he breathed.

"You really do take after John. Interesting." Sherlock frowned, and returned to his notes.

"Deduction sometimes doesn't mean getting it precise on the first try," he continued after a moment. "In some cases where there is insufficient evidence – like with Mr. Smith here – one may begin with generalisations or the obvious and narrow things down from further observation, usually as reactions to certain questions. For example –" he looked around the room again, eyes landing on Sabian. "Edward Hardwicke or David Burke?"

"What?" chorused a majority of the room. Sabian's eyes lit up.

"How'd you deduce that?" he breathed.

"You put 'nerd' on your registration form. It clearly shows. A nerd at a Baker Street Fanfiction Academy? Must have seen more than one adaptation. And one of the longest-running and most highly-lauded adaptations _would_ be the Granada series, so it's not hard to make the leap." Sherlock smiled. "Now that we've confirmed that you have indeed watched the Granada adaptation, do answer the question."

"Oh, that's a bit of a hard question," sighed Sabian. "I guess Burke? But then again Hardwicke does have to play up to that pre-established Watson, so I feel like I ought to pity him a bit more, so –"

"Excellent, moving on." Sherlock beamed. "We haven't all day, after all."

By the time class ended, half of the students were reeling from Sherlock's deductions, and the other half was reeling from having parts of their life stories become revealed for the world to see. Sherlock ended the class by reiterating the homework assignment, and dismissed everyone except Rose.

She'd been excited for all of one minute before he assigned her Bart's morgue clean-up duties for the rest of the week as detention.

* * *

Rose slunk into Speedy's with a glum expression. Melissa, who had been chatting with Dasha and Wymarc Mecham, waved her over with a concerned expression.

"What's wrong?"

Rose sniffed, taking a seat. "Sherlock's idea of detention isn't any fun," she complained.

"What do you mean?" Dasha asked.

"I mean that he's making me clean up the dissecting tables in the mortuary for the rest of the week." Rose pulled a face. "And he's making that really big mini-Hound supervise me."

"Jawn?" Wymarc asked. "Aw, Jawn's a cutie."

"Jawn hates me," whined Rose. "He bit me yesterday –"

"That's because you were trying to flash Sherlock in the middle of the street, stupid," Melissa pointed out. "I told you it was a bad idea."

"Yeah, well, Jinx bought a Belstaff coat and did the same and nothing happened to her –"

"He wasn't at Baker Street at the time. Plus she's ridiculously lucky because I heard Ruth Tamara tried to glomp Lestrade and got maimed by Letsrade. Mike Stamford's using her as a guinea pig for his med students."

"Evil little bugger," sniffed Rose. Stanford the mini-Hound growled at her from the counter (it was always seen with a graduating cap from Stanford University and often liked to chew the tassel).

"Well, what've we got after lunch?" Dasha asked, trying to change the subject. "Isn't it Moriarty's class?"

"Eww, psychopaths," Rose mumbled. "He's such a crazy little –"

"Oh my god, no. You did not just say you hate the world's greatest criminal mind," Renee Robins snapped from the other side of the café. "Take that back!"

"He is a psychopath, though!" Rose defended. "He's like, insane!"

"And you're just getting that now?" Renee demanded. "God I love him; he's crazy but he enjoys every minute of it and oh my god I just can't wait for his class!"

"I bet he's one of those teachers who will be all nice to you and barely assign you any homework but then spring a ridiculously hard test on you," sighed Melissa. "Or a pop quiz where all the answers are C."

"Oh god, that's evil," Dasha groaned.

"His class is called 'How to Become the Napoleon of Crime without Even Trying'. What did you think?"

* * *

"There's been a breakout," Donovan reported to Lestrade. Lestrade had been looking over his notes for his first class on Wednesday; Mr. Ben sat across from him pensively drinking coffee.

"Not our division," growled Lestrade, looking over at Mr. Ben.

"Pentonville?" asked Mr. Ben. "I was hoping to hear from them –"

"The you-know-what's escaped," Donovan snapped.

"Oh, that might be a bit more concerning," Mr. Ben replied, looking back at Lestrade. "Sure you're not going to take it?"

Lestrade sighed, and got up. "If Moriarty's playing it off as a hoax to fleece Sherlock again, I'm going to –"

"No, you're not." Donovan chuckled. "Let's go. Oh, and by the way, you might want to check out this interesting new mini-Hound that just spawned at Baskerville. They're reporting that it speaks French and Arabic."

"What?" demanded Mr. Ben, getting to his feet as well.

"I'm just telling you what Stapleton told me," Donovan replied with a shrug. "They say it's called the Houd of Baskerville."

Soon they were pulling up at Pentonville Prison in the police cars. Mr. Marty was waiting for them at the front doors leading to the A Wing, his expression serious. Mr. Ben rushed over to him.

"Sherlock's already assigned a detention this morning, who knows how many students Moriarty will detain, and this place isn't ready to hold any mini-Hound victims yet," he reported. "What've you got?"

Mr. Marty shook his head. "You've got to see this."

"Where did we put him before he broke out?"

"C Wing, obviously. Come on."

They strode through the echoing hallways of the prison, with Lestrade and Donovan following close behind. When they got to the empty cell in C Wing, though, Sherlock was already at the cell looking around for evidence while John loitered by the door trying to finish his sandwich.

"I honestly don't know how you lot can cave in so easily to the demands of your bodies," Sherlock declared as they stepped into the room.

"Yes, and digestion slows you down." Mr. Ben rolled his eyes. "What can you tell us about the escape?"

"It happened a long time ago. Why are we just getting to it? He did the bunk last week!" Sherlock sighed. "Obviously no one bothered to check on him, so no one figured it out until the cleaners came around trying to clean and discovered _that_." He pointed to the message on the wall, scrawled in bright Crimsun spraypaint.

"_There's nothing better than being an evil twin_," murmured Mr. Marty, frowning. "Dear _god_."

"Hang on, though. How the _hell_ did he escape and where did he get the Crimsun spraypaint?" demanded Lestrade.

Sherlock rolled his eyes. "All of the escapee's signs of having previously inhabited the cell are now soundly destroyed by bootprints that are industrial enough to be custodial boots. However, the escapee's clearly left traces of where he's been by his muddy shoeprints over here." He pointed to a tile in the corner. "Secret tunnel, through the tile in the bottom of the floor."

"What, like the Comte of Monte Cristo?" John demanded.

"The what?" Sherlock echoed.

"Oh, I forget that you delete irrelevant things." John rolled his eyes.

Sherlock walked over to the corner and tapped at the tile. "Hollow, obviously. But why would he break back in to spraypaint the message before the cleaners arrived? That's a bit odd, isn't it?"

"I'm more concerned about this evil twin thing in the message. What the hell is he on about?" demanded Lestrade, tilting his head at the Crimsun message and then looking away, rubbing his temples. "Evil twins – you don't mean to say there's more than one of him running around?"

"I doubt that that's the case," Sherlock replied, sweeping out of the cell. "Raz confirmed that the paint's from the same company that sold the yellow stuff that the Black Lotus used. John and I will be keeping tabs. Laters!"

* * *

It was late at night when Rose stumbled back into her room. Melissa was at the desk next to her bed, fastidiously typing on a loaned laptop from Bart's.

"Can you go to the Internet on that?" Rose asked.

"They've blocked everything good," whined Melissa. She turned away from her document. "I'm working on Moriarty's assignment, since you weren't here for us to do Sherlock's –"

"Fuck that shit," Rose groaned. "I'm tired and I want to sleep. Do I smell like formaldehyde?"

"And blood," Melissa concurred. "You need a shower."

Rose grabbed a towel and a set of pyjamas and headed for the bathroom in the semi-darkness. She could hear faint sounds of a violin being played across the street – Sherlock didn't seem to be in the mood for anything beyond discordant melodies, though, so it wasn't very pleasant to listen to. In fact, it sounded like a cat being tortured.

Rose would have pitied John if she wasn't too busy pitying herself for having Bart's clean-up duties for the rest of the week. And she also would have minded where she was going, too, because she suddenly collided with someone in the middle of the hallway.

"Sorry!" she squeaked, inching past the thing as best she could.

"No problem," the man replied, moving aside slightly. Rose smiled briefly before dashing into the bathroom and bolting the doors.

When she emerged after a well-deserved shower, the man was gone. The only thing that suggested he had even been there were splatters of Crimsun trailing down the hallway.

A mystery! Rose's mind immediately fired up in excitement; she simply had to get to the bottom of this, she simply had to! She immediately started tiptoeing down the hall with her things, following the trail of Crimsun paint. It ended it at the staircases; she frowned but then noticed the window was slightly open.

"Oh god, I feel like Sherlock. This is the best feeling ever," Rose told herself as she opened the window further and looked down.

Nothing.

Feeling slightly dejected, Rose stumped back to her room, tossed the soiled clothes into the bag designated as 'washing', and flopped onto her bed still towelling her hair dry. Melissa looked over again from her homework.

"Anything interesting?" she asked.

"What? How'd you…"

"You took quite a while," Melissa replied. "And I heard you collide with someone in the hall. Who was he?"

"No idea. But he had something odd with him and he escaped through the window."

"Wow." Melissa grinned. "That's suspicious."

"I would investigate, but I'm fucking tired and I need sleep." Rose flung her towel over her face. "G'night."

* * *

She felt like she had barely fallen asleep before she was being forced awake again by the sound of gunfire in the direction of 221B. "Someone tell Sherlock to stop shooting the walls!" Rose screeched as she bolted upright and glared at the clock hanging above the doorway. Four in the morning was _not_ the time for target practice, no matter how sexy you were!

"No, that's your wake-up call," a snippy feminine voice resounded from the doorway. "Freak thought it'd be the most expedient way to wake you all up for his… colleague's… class."

"Oh my god, it's the bitch," Rose groaned as she took in the sight of Sally Donovan's smug face. "Get out of my sight, bitch."

"Excuse me?" Donovan demanded. "I could have you in Pentonville for this, had it not recently been the site of a breakout –"

"A breakout?" Melissa sat bolt upright. "What's going on?"

"None of your business. Up!" Donovan slammed the door shut and went off to properly wake the rest of the floor. The gunshots continued.

Rose and Melissa found themselves out in the middle of Baker Street moments later. John Watson emerged from 221B as soon as everyone had assembled; the cheery oatmeal jumper looked extremely at odds with the evil grin on his face.

"Wow, I think he's on one of his bad days," Remy Harper Mansfield whispered to Mischa Byrne, who was perched on her shoulder. The Tribble nodded anxiously. "I bet Sherlock's violin recital last night was the culprit."

"No, Miss Mansfield, it's because I'm apparently forty-three weeks pregnant and crabby," John retorted sarcastically.

"You are?" Jinx demanded.

"No. Do I_ look_ pregnant?"

"Yes," whispered Clay Bristol.

"Ah, Mr. Bristol. Both Sherlock and Moriarty had some choice words about you." John crossed his arms and fixed the boy with his most steely soldier glare. "I will assure you that if I catch wind of you insinuating that I am 'too girly to be a believable soldier' at any time during your tenure at MBSFA, I will personally hand you over to Sherlock for experimentation. He's been itching to dissect a fanbrat's brain." A pause. "And I'll be helping him with that, too."

A shudder ran through the students. Obviously many people forgot that John was a surgeon. But then again, it was rather easy to forget such things when he wore such cuddly jumpers all the time.

John ordered them to line up into military-straight columns. Pandemonium ensued, in which Rose tripped over more feet than she could count in her bid to get as far away from the slightly-crazed ex-Army surgeon as she could. She ended up next to the boy she had sat next to in Sherlock's class yesterday, the boy named Elijah.

"Hey," she greeted. He nodded at her.

"Quiet!" John barked, channelling a drill sergeant now. He began to pace up and down the row, occasionally pausing to throw withering glares in their direction. Rose was fairly certain she could see Sherlock observing behind the curtains at 221B. "This is Grammar Boot Camp! Many of you do not understand basic rules of grammar – which is highly ironic, because Sherlock is the biggest Grammar Nazi I know –"

There were some giggles from two Johnlock shippers – Kass Wan and Remy Harper Mansfield – in the front. John whirled about, fixing them with that same steely soldier glare that he had aimed earlier at Clay.

"Miss Wan and Miss Mansfield, one lap around Regent's Park. Now."

"Where's Regent's Park?" Kass asked, eyes frightened.

"Down the street. You can't miss it. Now go before I release Wtason and Wotson!" At that, the fangirls bolted. John resumed pacing.

"Each class will begin with a short run up and down Baker Street. Before we do that, though, I will select a fanwork from your ranks. For every grammar infraction I find, everyone has to run an extra lap."

Oh god. This was terrible. Rose cringed and hoped John didn't choose one of her stories.

"Today's fanfic will be 'The Subjugation of Sherlock Holmes' by Jamie Valocca," John continued, grinning as he held up the offending papers. Jinx cringed and tried to hide behind Mariah.

The ex-Army surgeon began to read the story, eyebrows flying into his hairline as he did so. Rose scuffed at the asphalt and hoped Jinx had used a good beta reader.

* * *

"Mycroft's class is next!" Mariah exclaimed as the tired and groaning students hailed cabs (all of which had been restricted from passing through Baker Street on Tuesday mornings, because the Staff weren't _that _evil – yet) to lunch. Rose hurt all over, and she wished that she had something to take away the hurt. Maybe she could break into Bart's and steal some morphine…

"Wow, you're so annoyingly cheerful for a girl who had to do fifty push-ups with a mini-Hound on your back," groaned Leevee, who had initially put down 'awesome' as a species on her registration form and consequently tended to attract annoying little birds. Her copper hair had been liberally streaked through with white, and she had red eyes behind her somehow-shoulder-length glasses. She also had a tendency to yell "Mein Gott!" and "Kesesesesese!" in inappropriate situations.

"But it's Mycroft and cake and ugh I want to see him seduce a doughnut." Mischa flopped onto the table as soon as they entered the restaurant across from the Lucky Cat Emporium.

"Heheheh, seducing a doughnut," giggled Mariah as she pet the Tribble. Kass Wan, still panting from her extra lap around Regent's Park, glared at her.

"Ew, Mystrade," she muttered as she took a seat across from a boy Rose vaguely recognised as Patrick Scott Harper. Elijah Smith was sitting next to him.

"He was hitting on me on the first day." Melissa whispered as she and Rose took their seats and picked up their menus.

"Elijah? Seriously?" Rose quirked an eyebrow. "He's so quiet."

"I dunno. But then again, he only _looks_ innocent, you know?"

Rose laughed. "Yeah, sure." Her leg chose that moment to complain; she clutched it, hissing. "Damn my leg. I don't want to go to class."

"Mycroft'll hunt us down if we miss his class, though," Melissa replied, smirking. "What're you going to have?"

* * *

**Notes:** 'Houd' – or rather, Hoûd, is the French spelling of the name of a prophet in ancient Arabia mentioned in the Qur'an (in English his name is Hud).


	4. Holmesian Adaptations and Doppelgangers

**Part IV**

"Fuck this shit!"

"That's roughly the forty-second time you've said that this week," Melissa pointed out.

It was already the end of the first week out of several for this extremely long semester at MBSFA (or so it seemed to Rose, who was simply raring to get her license so she could continue her story about Rosie Watson-Holmes and how she made a boy named Benny Cumberland – who most definitely was _not_ Benedict Cumberbatch – fall in love with her). She had managed to survive through a full week of classes and was now paying the price for procrastinating on the full week of homework she had piled up.

"I don't want to write a paper on the differences between 'A Study in Pink' and _A Study in Scarlet_! Obviously one is modern and the other is in Victorian England, duh!"

"There are other differences," Melissa drawled, not looking up from her paper on the history of criminal forensics for Lestrade's class. He was teaching a class entitled 'Beyond the Gaslight: Bringing Holmes into the Modern Era and Beyond', and he was already heavily hinting at some huge assignment for next class that would take them to the end of the semester. Rose dreaded it.

"Yeah, like what?" she asked, staring at the assignment paper for Donovan and Anderson's class on characterization and deciding to start instead on Mrs. Hudson's paper on the evolution of feminine roles in literature. Who knew that 'Not Your Housekeeper' class involved more than just tea and biscuits?

"Like the fact that in _Scarlet_ Holmes figured out that it was a cabbie way before everyone else, while in 'Pink' Sherlock only realised it at the very end. And in _Scarlet_ 'Rache' meant 'revenge' in German, with Rachel being the red herring. It's flipped in 'Pink'."

"What else?"

"I'm not writing your paper for you. Do your own work."

"Fine." Rose stuck her tongue out at Melissa and wrote a few sentences for Mrs. Hudson's paper before giving it up. "Did you do the deductions?"

"Obviously," Melissa replied. "Did you?"

"…You like hedgehogs since you're wearing a hedgehog necklace? I'm guessing it's because of Martin Freeman being a hedgehog, though." Rose sighed. "I suck at this. How the hell does Sherlock –"

"Take a look at my belongings," Melissa suggested. "Better yet, look at what I have on the wall."

Rose frowned, looking at the wall next to Melissa's desk. There were notes, pictures, posters, a calendar, and a nightlight.

"The nightlight," she said suddenly. "You're scared of the dark."

"There you go." Melissa smiled; Rose found herself smiling back.

She quickly finished her deduction for Sherlock's class and just as easily finished her paragraph for Moriarty's on what she would do if she ruled the world (make Sherlock season three arrive faster with Sherlock and John realising their love for one another and getting it on in the middle of a case, obviously). She then half-arsed her homework for Molly (draw a diagram of the vital organs in a human body and where they are located) and wrote some more half-hearted sentences for Mrs. Hudson's prompt.

Luckily for them, Irene had decided not to give them homework for her class, and Sherlock and John had forgotten for theirs. Rose grinned dorkily as she remembered Platonic Love class – oh, it was so bloody obvious that the two were shagging, so bloody obvious –

The door to their room slammed open at that moment and in scrambled Mischa Byrne and Wymarc Mecham, both of them grinning from ear to ear (although Rose wasn't too sure if Hedgie – Mischa – had ears at all).

"You two are up to something," Melissa noted.

"No shit, Sherlock!" giggled Wymarc. "We just dared Yuki to sneak into 221B!"

"You what?" Melissa demanded.

"Megan Vaughan! We dared her to sneak into 221B and steal something!"

"She's not going to get past the mini-Hounds," Melissa snapped. "Don't you –"

She was cut off by a scream. The four girls rushed to the window to see the green glow of a mini-Hound dragging Megan's figure down the street.

"Off to Pentonville with her, I see," Mischa noted.

"What exactly happens there? Rose asked fearfully. "Ruth was telling horror stories about it after Anderson and Donovan's class."

"You stay there for two days, I think," Wymarc whispered. "They keep you in solitary confinement and force you to clean up after the mini-Hounds and stuff."

"I heard Clay Bristol had to help Moriarty turn someone into shoes. He's been walking around with a shock blanket since Friday."

"Who got turned into shoes?" demanded Rose.

"No one we know, thank god," Melissa whispered.

Rose sighed and returned to her homework with a glum expression. "I hate this," she muttered. "The only class worth attending is Platonic Love, and that's just ironic."

"I thought you didn't know what irony was," sniggered Melissa.

"But that was the best class," agreed Wymarc, grinning. And as they discussed the first Platonic Love class, Rose found herself tripping down memory lane…

* * *

"_Everyone, in your seats! _Now_!"_

_Almost immediately everyone scrambled to their seats as John Watson and Sherlock Holmes marched into the room. Drill Sergeant John Watson was not a pleasant John Watson to cross. Rose chalked it up to him having discovered a story in which he had been impregnated by a voodoo demon spirit thing. Hey, if that had happened to her she would have been a cranky paranoid bitch, too._

_Or maybe he was on a man-period – no, mustn't think that; John would quite literally have her head for that –_

"_How many of you write slash about me and John?" Sherlock demanded as soon as he reached the podium. He paused. "No, wait, let me figure this out." His eyes scanned the room; Rose felt her stomach flutter when his eyes briefly locked with hers. Oh damn, he was so sexy – _

"_Everyone sitting in the first eight rows," Sherlock concluded, taking out his notebook and smirking. "Now raise your hands if you write slash about me and John."_

_As deduced, everyone in the first eight rows raised their hands._

"_But I'm not gay!" John blurted out, turning bright red._

"_Yes you are!" someone squeaked. John tried to single them out, but to no avail._

"_Seriously, how many times do I have to say that I'm not interested in Sherlock like that?" _

"_John, I thought we agreed to stick to the –"_

"Fuck the notes_! Look, _yes_, I love Sherlock. It's widely acknowledged. I _love _Sherlock. But not in _that _way! What we share is absolutely platonic –"_

"_Says the guy who talks about Sherlock ripping his clothes off in a darkened swimming pool," sniggered Dasha Lynch._

"_It was a joke! I had a bomb vest! Will you stop construing everything I do or say as homoerotic subtext?"_

"_You can't spell subtext without buttsex," whispered Wymarc._

"What was that_?" Even Sherlock cracked a smile at that; everyone else was too busy laughing._

"_John, you might need to calm down a bit," the consulting detective suggested. "It's a class. We have the entire semester to teach them the differences between platonic and sexual attraction. Calm. Down."_

"_But it's_ not_ okay!"_

"_I believe you said yourself that it's all fine?"_

"_But I'm not gay and I don't appreciate other people dictating my sexuality!"_

_Sherlock set both of his hands on John's shoulders. "_Shush_," he insisted. The Johnlock shippers squealed. Sherlock turned to the class again, letting his hands drop. "Take out your textbooks, everyone," he snapped. _

_Rose took out her textbook (_When Friendzone is the Best Zone_, by Nick Playto) and opened to the first chapter with a sigh._

"_All right." Sherlock beamed at them, clapping his hands. "Let's discuss the first chapter, or 'When Staring Does Not Equal Foreplay'." With a flourish, he brought up a chart on the projection screen that showed what appeared to be a staring contest between two highly attractive males. "Let's examine the situations in which these staring opportunities arise…"_

* * *

"I told you not to teach him how to count cards!" Mr. Ben threw his hands in the air, glaring at John. Across the table from him sat Sherlock with the most angelic expression on his face.

"It wasn't as if I was going to set him loose on Vegas," John grumbled as he shuffled the cards. Mr. Marty walked over with four pints of beer, sniggering.

"Cheers, you guys," he remarked, smiling. They were all at the bar where Andrew West had hosted his engagement party. Bright lights flashed through the room and the drinks were flowing freely, but all Sherlock seemed interested in were the cards that John was shuffling.

"Cheers," John replied, setting down his cards to pick up his pint. He raised an eyebrow at Mr. Ben, rolling his eyes good-naturedly. "You know how it is. He practically begged me to teach him. Twice, in fact. I think Irene's jealous."

"Well, I knew you used to be an avid gambler in Afghanistan –"

"How'd you know that? Went through my things again, did you?"

Sherlock took a gulp of beer to delay his response. "Perhaps," he muttered.

"Have you really no sense of personal space, Sherlock? I told you not to –"

"Still managed to convince you to teach me cards, so the point's quite moot. Old habits die hard."

John snorted. "You of all people would know."

At that moment, however, Sherlock's mobile moaned. John raised an eyebrow.

"Irene's still texting you?" he demanded.

Sherlock rolled his eyes as he took out his phone and looked at the text. "They've found another one," he reported. "At the sweets factory in Addlestone. No message, apparent suicide."

"Victim's name?" asked Mr. Marty.

"Eugenia Pepperidge." Sherlock put his mobile away. "Suspects check out, Ben?"

"Airtight alibis for all of them."

John took a swig of his pint. "No closer to finding you-know-who?"

"Nope. It's odd, because he has a very distinctive look, doesn't he?" Mr. Marty sighed. "Theoretically it shouldn't be very hard to find him, but no. We haven't."

"Any leads on the girl that Hamish Wilson met before he died?" asked Sherlock.

"Lestrade called her," replied Mr. Ben. "Her name's Ava Dawson. Studies at the same university as Mr. Wilson, and met him at the Shakespeare seminar and accompanied him to the café. Knew nothing significant about the murder – in fact, she sounded rather shocked if Lestrade's report is anything to go on."

"I see." Sherlock raised an eyebrow and steeped his fingers together in the thinking pose.

"So, any links, do you think? To… well, to Miss Pepperidge?" John asked.

"Official story is apparent suicide, according to Irene, but you know how apparent suicides are." Sherlock rolled his eyes. "We should go visit the morgue, see the evidence for ourselves. Come on." With that, he got up. John put away his cards, finished his beer, and thanked the Course Coordinator and the Head of Student Discipline for paying the tab.

Mr. Marty snorted. "I didn't know we agreed to do that," he remarked to Mr. Ben as the consulting detective and the ex-Army doctor left the bar.

"Neither did I," replied Mr. Ben as he took a swig of his beer.

* * *

"Turn in your papers on the history of criminal forensics," Lestrade was dictating as Rose shuffled into his classroom at Scotland Yard, yawning. "Miss Ellis, I hope you have a good excuse for your tardiness."

"Mild traffic," Rose replied as she took her seat. "Sorry."

Lestrade harrumphed, but collected her paper nonetheless. Rose rubbed her eyes and yawned again – she'd actually woken up at an abominably early hour to write the paper due for this class. There was more bullshit in that paper than in all of Spain, and she'd already resigned herself to a low grade for it.

The Detective Inspector took the papers and put them aside. Turning to the whiteboard, he wrote 'ADAPTATIONS' in giant letters. "What are key components of good Sherlock Holmes adaptations?" he demanded.

"Characterisation!" exclaimed Patrick Scott Harper.

"The Johnlock dynamic!" chipped in Melissa Abberline.

"Mysteries and shit!" yelled Dasha Lynch.

"Yes, good, very good." Lestrade smiled, writing them all onto the board. "The Holmesian fandom has had fanfiction well before the likes of _Star Trek_ and fanzines. As Mycroft may have pointed out, many famous people have written their own Sherlock Holmes parodies and pastiches, to the point where the Holmesian fandom became the first to use the word 'canon' to describe the original work that these various fanworks revolve around. Conan Doyle himself blurred the lines, though, and has written fanfic for his own creation." He paused, snickering. "Some famous writers of uncanonical Sherlock Holmes works are Arthur Conan Doyle's son Adrian, Nicholas Meyer, Stephen Fry, Stephen King, Anthony Horowitz, Neil Gaiman, and possibly even Franklin Delano Roosevelt –"

"FDR did _what_?" demanded several students.

"FDR apparently wrote a piece about Sherlock Holmes in the White House. Lord knows where one could obtain a copy of it. Aside from that, there are others who give Holmes and Watson cameos in their work – Mark Twain is one of them. The point is, there have been numerous adaptations, numerous fanworks written for Sherlock Holmes, and BBC _Sherlock _is one of them." Lestrade paused. "Therefore, as Mycroft may have reminded you, a solid grounding in the original stories is thus very crucial to understanding the BBC_ Sherlock_ universe, because if you write fanfic of a fanfic, it becomes even less connected to the original canon unless you can understand both the canon of BBC_ Sherlock_ and the canon of the original stories."

Rose yawned. Wow, how utterly _boring_! The original stories were just so boring, since it was mostly Watson and his ramblings. Not nearly enough yummy Sherlock. And Sherlock in the original stories seemed far too nice. Where was her delicious high-functioning sociopath?

"So with that in mind, let's discuss the elements of a successful Sherlock Holmes adaptation or fanwork!" Lestrade smiled evilly. "First off, characterisation. Yes, that is extremely important. Several fanworks with great potential have been ruined because they lack the proper characterisation. Holmes must be a deductive genius; Watson must be the grounding force, the human element to their duo. You can't create two amorphous blobs and call one 'Sherlock Holmes' and the other one 'John Watson', not even if you draw a moustache on the Watson blob and put a deerstalker on the Holmes blob. You must prove it through their backstories, through their interaction, through their personalities. This is one of the reasons why _Elementary _is getting so much flack despite it not even having been aired yet – their Watson figure lacks the military background that is so crucial to his – or in this case, her – character. No doubt Joan Watson has the potential to prove our misgivings unfounded, but as of right now, the fact that she is a disgraced ex-surgeon feels as if she cannot be deemed a true Watson adaptation."

"Why is Watson's military thing so important?" asked Aviva Von Lilite.

Lestrade rolled his eyes. "It shows that he is capable of handling danger and dealing with people like Sherlock, that he is patriotic enough to fight for Queen and country, that he has strong moral principles. Plus the crack shot thing comes in handy, too." He paused. "Just a medical background wouldn't strictly guarantee John's ability to cope with dangerous situations, so a medical and military background ensures that he is, to some degree, useful."

The Detective Inspector checked his notes again. "Moving on. The next most important thing is the relationship between Holmes and Watson – and before you shippers tear me apart, I would like to say that I use the term 'relationship' to simply describe their dynamics. They must be able to work together; they must be able to live together; they must be able to coexist in a way that suggests that if they were ever separated they would not be able to function as well as if they were together. John's stated that the love he and Sherlock share is platonic. What most people see, though, is that it goes far beyond the triangle of love theory. In possibly the most non-sexual way ever, they are parts of a whole. Soulmates, perhaps. And if an adaptation or fanwork lacks that, they lack a central piece to the entire tale. The reason why readers love Sherlock Holmes is because they are seeing him through the eyes of a man who loves Sherlock Holmes."

The non-Johnlock shippers groaned. Jinx muttered something about 'stupid Johnlock' under her breath. Rose fought valiantly with the urge to strangle the Adlerlock fangirl until she had bruises around her neck like those of Alex Woodbridge.

"Finally," continued Lestrade, coughing, "a proper Sherlock Holmes adaptation or fanwork must have some element of mystery or at least something in which Holmes can prove his deductive genius. With that in mind, everyone copy down the basic structure of a Holmesian tale." He turned to the board and began to write; Rose and the others scrambled to take notes.

"First there is the exposition," began Lestrade as he wrote the words on the whiteboard. "This is usually a domestic scene in 221B where Holmes demonstrates his deductive skills on something trivial."

"So like that thing with the pocket-watch and Dr. Mortimer's cane," said Mary.

"Yes, exactly. Next are the arrival of the client and the presenting of the case. Holmes takes the case, of course, and sets out with Watson to collect evidence. The clues are set on the table as Watson sees them."

"Why Watson?" asked Ellie Yelsnit.

"Because the stories are told from his point of view. The reader only knows what Watson knows, which heightens the suspense as they attempt to piece together the information through Watson's own observations and biases. However, Holmes is usually a couple paces ahead of Watson in terms of understanding the case. He often goes about catching the criminal via traps – witnessing a repeat attack, catching the perpetrator red-handed. This serves as the climax, when Holmes reveals the criminal to Watson and possibly the police." He paused for a moment. "And then we have the falling action, when Holmes describes the deductive logic used to arrive at his conclusions, in a circular structure that mimics the opening scene."

"So it begins with presenting the deductive skill and ends with proving how it's useful," stated Kenzie Chase, who had put down 'female' for species and had an unnatural fear of Jim Moriarty (something that usually caused her roommate Renee Robins to tie her down for Moriarty's classes in order to get her to stay).

"Yes!" Lestrade beamed, causing Ruth Tamara and Levee to sigh happily. Rose was pretty sure the two had not comprehended a thing from the lecture because they were too busy staring at Lestrade's face. "Thus each story is capable of standing on its own. Adaptations and derivative works must therefore capture those two constants - the practical application of technology, logic, and deduction to uncover the truth, as well as the deep friendship between two starkly different men. And on that note, we arrive at our project."

"A project?" squeaked Mischa Byrnes.

"Yes. A partner project. You and one other person will work together to create your own Holmesian adaptation. You may consider it a BBC _Sherlock_ AU, because I will require that you stick to the BBC _Sherlock _dynamics and characterisations of the various characters. However, you are not allowed to simply recast the episodes into a new setting. You can refer to them, but on no account are they to take up an entire storyline. Come up with your own case, or borrow elements from the original Canon."

"Are there specific AUs that we have to avoid?" someone asked.

"No, you may use whatever strikes your fancy. You just have to make sure to go about it convincingly. Sherlock Holmes is all about science and logic. Too many magic and half-arsed explanations for things will ruin it. Now, for the partner assignments."

He took out a list and began to read. Rose hoped to be paired with someone she could work with. Hopefully Melissa, since she was nice, she was her roommate, and she knew more about the original stories than Rose.

But alas, Melissa was paired with Aviva Von Lilite. Poor Mischa was paired with Clay Bristol and Wymarc with Cale Serfe. Jinx was paired with Patrick Scott Harper, who looked frightened by the very sight of her.

"Rose Ellis and Elijah Smith!" read Lestrade. Rose craned her head and noticed Elijah next to Patrick. She waved him over.

"Hey," she greeted as he took a seat across from her. "We're working together!"

"No shit, Sherlock," he replied good-naturedly. "So. Um..."

But he didn't get to continue. At that moment, Lestrade had finished the assignments list and was writing on the board again.

"I'll allow you lot to coordinate and collaborate for the rest of class, but before you do that, just know that homework is to write a four-page essay on the extent that BBC _Sherlock_ maintains the two constants of Holmesian fanworks. It'll be due next time in class."

With that, he let them loose.

* * *

"So you're saying that they're linked? Hamish Wilson and Eugenia Pepperidge?" Detective Inspector Dimmock demanded incredulously as Sherlock examined the corpse of a young woman with wheat-blonde hair and unseeing blue eyes.

"Yes," Sherlock replied bluntly.

"But there's no link the murders – Miss Pepperidge was killed differently and there's no note."

"I contacted Ava Dawson," Sherlock replied, holding up his mobile. "Texts. She appeared shocked and mystified about Eugenia's death, said that Eugenia was the niece of her best friend Emily."

"Emily…?" John asked, frowning.

"Emily Watts, according to Miss Dawson."

"Are you saying that she – Ava Dawson – are you saying that she may know more about the deaths of Mr. Wilson or Miss Pepperidge than what she's letting on?" John asked.

"I'm saying to reserve judgement until we have definitive proof," Sherlock replied, stowing away his mobile. At that moment, John's sounded.

"Text," John remarked. "Withheld number. Coordinates."

"Of what?" Sherlock demanded, taking his mobile back out. He and Dimmock crowded around John; Sherlock input the coordinates listed in the text into the maps function on his own mobile.

"Blimey, it's 221B," Dimmock muttered, peering over at the result. "What… what does that mean?"

"Means we need to go back and check, obviously," Sherlock snapped, replacing his mobile into his coat and sweeping out of the morgue. John and Dimmock looked at each other and followed suit.

They hailed a cab back to Baker Street. Luckily, the fangirls had been prevented from destroying the crime scene by the presence of Jawn and a retinue of other mini-Hounds (Addler, serlock, shorlock, and Homms). Once the cab parked, Sherlock practically shot out of the cab like a rocket and rushed under the tape to the body, which was already surrounded by Lestrade, Donovan, and Anderson.

"Clubbed," Sherlock said immediately. "Any messages?"

"None that I've seen," Lestrade replied. Sherlock frowned and raced into 221B. He thundered upstairs, quickly noting that nothing had been disturbed in any way in the sitting room. His own room, however, proved different.

The window had obviously been recently used; the dust levels on the ledge suggested the person had left through his window. But why? And hadn't Mrs. Hudson noticed? How could the killer dump the body of a girl on the pavement outside 221B, escape through the window of Sherlock's room, and not arouse Mrs. Hudson's suspicions?

He looked out the window, and blinked in shock. Spraypainted in Crimsun on the walls of the building across from him was the message '_I'M THE DOPPELGANGER_'.

"Sherlock!" John's voice resounded moments later as he clanked up the stairs to their flat, panting slightly. "Sherlock, that girl –" he paused, taking in Sherlock's expression. "You all right? What's… oh."

"Doppelganger. The evil twin thing again."

"Yeah, yeah, I see." John scratched his head. "Well. You need a blanket for your shock?"

"Shut _up_." Sherlock's mouth twitched amusedly nonetheless. "You were saying about the girl, though?"

"Her name, Sherlock. Her name is Emily Watts."


	5. The Game is Afoot

**Notes:** Irene's class takes a majority of its facts and text from, once again, the PPC page on the subject.

* * *

**Part V**

"Where on earth did you get that?"

Mycroft Holmes looked up from the giant basket of pastries. "Get what?" he asked innocently.

"The pastries," Lestrade replied, raising an eyebrow.

"Bakery Street," Mycroft explained, grinning. "New addition to the campus after someone misspelled Baker Street. Take a look." With a flourish he set down the basket onto Lestrade's desk and pulled out a loaf of bread with a blue scarf around it. "Meet Sherloaf Holmes."

"Oh god." Lestrade chuckled weakly. "That is just as bad as the Moriartea." Moriartea had sprung up a couple days ago as a giant teapot prone to exploding hot tea all over people at random moments. Usually the students got the worst of it.

"Indeed. And here's Johnnycake Wheatson," here he pulled out a cornmeal flatbread in an oatmeal jumper.

"I can imagine all of the puns," Lestrade sniggered. "_My best friend, Sherloaf Holmes, is bread_. Didn't Stamford get a defibrillator toaster the other day?"

"I haven't the slightest," Mycroft replied, smirking. "Don't get me started on the giant jam and marmalade collection that John's hoarding right now." Grinning, he pulled out another loaf of bread. "Mycrust Holmes."

"Surprised it's not a pie," Lestrade snickered.

Mycroft shot him a withering glare. "And Inspector Lestrudel," he continued, showing Lestrade an apple strudel in a grey suit. "Irene Puddingler," he added, taking out a cup of pudding with a shrug. "They call her the Danishatrix, but she's a pudding."

"What are Donovan and Anderson?"

"Sally Donutovan and Anderscone," giggled Mycroft. "And of course, Moritarty. Although the fans have decided to assign him a Sebastian Meringue despite not having a Sebastian Moran in the cast. Yet."

"Yet," agreed Lestrade. "Did you see the new mini-Hound?"

"There are numerous. You'd have to elucidate." Mycroft leaned back and took a bite out of Lestrudel. Lestrade winced in secondhand sympathy for his pastry counterpart.

"Lustrate," the Detective Inspector muttered. "It's the shiniest and horniest little bugger this side of the English Channel."  
Mycroft raised an eyebrow.

"No, I'm serious, Mycroft, the last time I saw it, it was trying to get cosy with Microft. Which is quite a feat, since Microft is part-computer."

"Oh dear. I hope only the students have to witness a mating attempt of that calibre. Is it even mating season?"  
No sooner had the elder Holmes said that did there come a scream from just outside Scotland Yard, a bloodcurdling scream of disgust that could only be attributed to a fangirl who had just seen something she would like to bleach away from her mind forever.

"Spoke too soon," Mycroft noted, as Lestrade snorted with laughter.

* * *

Two more murders. The news spread, especially since the most recent one occurred right at the students' doorstep.

"Dreadful business, isn't it?" Melissa murmured as she nursed a giant welt on her head at breakfast on Friday. Rose chuckled over her eggs and hoped that Irene wouldn't assign homework again. Unfortunately for them Sherlock and John had insisted they write an essay on bromances, and she wasn't looking forward to starting it.

"Yeah, yeah it is. Hey, Elijah!" Rose beamed, leaning up and waving her new group-project-partner over. They were all at Speedy's for breakfast; Irene's sex ed class would begin in about half an hour. Elijah was carrying a tray of bacons and eggs Benedict – mm, mustn't think about eggs Benedict –

"Hey," Elijah replied, taking a seat at their table. "So, when are we beginning the project?"

"Hopefully after Irene's class," Rose replied, smiling. Melissa coughed uncomfortably and looked away. Elijah looked at her, raised an eyebrow, and looked away as well with a light dusting of pink across his cheeks. Rose pouted and tucked into her hash browns.

"What's the story behind that welt?" Elijah asked, still not looking directly at Melissa. Melissa rolled her eyes.

"Hedgehog," she replied.

"Hedgehog?" echoed Rose and Elijah in unison.

Melissa grimaced. "Yes. You know when they tell you that cute things are evil? Yeah, that's one hundred percent true."

"Tch, yeah. Just take a look at John 'Grammar Boot Camp' Watson," snorted Rose.

"And Molly," agreed Melissa. "But anyway, they trained the hedgehogs in this place to attack us."

"What'd you do, try to adopt it?" Rose demanded. "I know you're in love with hedgehogs, but…"

"I was just trying to give it a little jumper," sniffed Melissa. "It didn't have to attack me for it…"

"Have you been to the Cucumberpatch yet?" Elijah asked suddenly. "Sprung up last night."

"Heard about it," Rose replied, remembering hearing Kenzie Chase and Claire 'Flareonse' Travers talking about it at two in the morning as she attempted to access Tumblr on the loaned laptop (obviously it would be blocked along with all of the well-known fanfiction archives; Mycroft was, after all, the British government). They'd been walking past from the communal bathrooms, for some unknown reason that Rose wasn't too keen on figuring out. "Exactly what sort of cucumbers are there?"

"The kind with Benedict Cumberbatch's face on it," replied Elijah with a snicker and a blush. Rose thought it was extremely adorable in the puppy-like kind of way. "A bit disturbing if you think about it, but…"

"Breakfast," Melissa snapped. "We're trying to eat and it's far too early in the morning to ponder the mysteries of cucumbers that look like Benedict Cumberbatch."

They got on for a bit, until Rose frowned and set down her fork and asked, "speaking of mysteries, does anyone know how far Sherlock's getting with the murders?"

Elijah and Melissa shrugged.

"Sounds like he hasn't caught the killer," Melissa replied, shrugging. "I mean, if he did catch him or her John would have told us."

Elijah nodded, finishing his eggs. "What do you think, though? The messages and stuff?"

"Dunno. How many are there?"

"The first was 'Rache'," replied Melissa promptly. "The others they didn't tell us about."

Rose sighed, looking at the clock on the wall. "Shit, we need to go."

"Mm, sex ed with Irene beckons." Melissa rolled her eyes as they gathered their things to leave.

* * *

Of all the classrooms, in all the possible locations, in all of London, Irene Adler decided to teach Sex Ed at Buck Palace.

"Dubious Lube!" she exclaimed as the students filed into the giant parlour that would forever be remembered as the 'No Sheet Sherlock' room. "Today we will be discussing dubious lube. Everyone sit down before Alder breaks out the riding crop."

Quickly the students scrambled onto the various and sundry chaises and chairs arranged around a small coffee table and the sofa that Sherlock and John had sat on while waiting for Mycroft to show up in Scandal. Behind was a giant whiteboard. Kate, Irene's assistant, was poised with a marker next to the board.

"Dubious lube is a term for lubricants used in anal sex that defy all common sense, logic, and sanity. Some of these lubes just don't work; others are extremely harmful to the semi-permeable membranes in the rectum."

"Extremely harmful?" echoed Kenzie Chase.

"More along the lines of extremely _painful_," Renee Robins said in a stage whisper. Next to her the extremely genderfluid vampire Daniel Herman snickered.

"Yes, the general idea is that if you can't put it up your nose, then don't put it up your ass," Irene replied, smiling at Kate. "Kate, darling, why don't you list some common dube lubes on the board for us?"

Kate smiled and began to write.

"All right, the first category is 'Not Actually Lube'. Saliva is a common one in this category," Irene purred, grinning at some of the stunned looks on the students' faces.

"Saliva doesn't work?" whimpered Matt Chorell the Time Lord. He would be extremely cute if his eyes weren't in the shape of the circuits travelled by itinerant justices in medieval England. "But I…"

"But you heard wrong, sweetie. It helps, but it takes a lot of saliva as well as time and patience in order to use as a proper lubricant – and generally most fanfics are too heat of the moment for such things. It's like egg whites – they work, but which horny bastard do you know is going to patiently wait for their lover to separate an egg?"

"Sherlock?" suggested Kass Wan.

Irene snorted. "Sherlock, a horny bastard? Which version of the show do you watch?"

"The Tumblr version," Clay Bristol whispered snidely.

"Hey, leave Tumblr out of it!" whined Kass.

"It's the source of all of the idiocy in this stupid fandom!" Clay growled.

"And sinful, too," added Alan Cablen in a carrying whisper as he looked around him judgementally. "World's a mess, and I just need to rule it!"

Rose decided at that moment that she hated his guts. Bloke was probably only in it for Moriarty.

Irene coughed loudly. "Shall we move on?" she demanded. "Next most common offender is blood. Blood is a coagulant; it clogs outside the body and gets very sticky and uncomfortable. You could possibly make an exception for a blood or pain kink, but if that contradicts with established characterisation then things get extremely dubious."

"Damn," Daniel muttered. "Who do you think could make an exception for blood, then?"

"Probably Jim," Irene replied, rolling her eyes. "God knows I wouldn't. I always have proper lube on hand, thank you very much."

Some of the students squirmed uncomfortably. Irene grinned predatorily, suggesting that if anyone put a single toe out of line in her classroom, they may find themselves strung up at her house in a way evocative of the red room in Fifty Shades of Grey. Except without virginity-tearing.

"Next. Raise your hand if you have a magical self-lubricating arse."

People looked awkwardly at each other.

"Nope? Didn't think so. Next! Urine. I'm not sure why you would use piss as a lubricant. It's a waste product. Please don't put it back into your body. See, the rectum is lined with semi-permeable membranes, which means that whatever gets put in there could potentially be absorbed into your body. In that same vein, do not put alcohol, coffee, shampoo, sunblock, ink, alcohol gel, curry, acid, ketchup, barbeque sauce, lighter fluid, deodorant, WD40, paint, mango pulp, aloe vera, or molten metal into your rectum. If you don't believe me, try it yourself."

"Who the hell tried putting molten metal –" whispered Mischa in terror.

"Probably the same idiot who tried using bat guano or molten sugar," Irene sighed. "Or a half-eaten cherry lollipop, but thank god that didn't happen in our fandom."

"_Bat guano_?" squeaked Matt. "Isn't that, like, caustic?"

Irene rolled her eyes. "If naturalists have to wear biohazard suits when entering bat habitats, then yes. Very. Obviously." She beamed at the squirming students all around her. "Melted or solid chocolate won't work, either, or sugary products. This also includes honey, for you beekeeping-Johnlock enthusiasts. Sticky, gritty, lumpy, and absolutely inconsumable afterwards."

"Who would –?" gagged Wymarc.

"Dunno, I think I heard about a story where Mycroft used cake frosting," whispered Melissa.

"Eurgh!" whimpered several students, including Elijah. Rose by now was fairly glowing about the cheeks and ears. She may or may not have written a story about Sherlock and John using hydrochloric acid…

Irene laughed. "Well, in any case, it is possible for people to have not-uncomfortable anal sex without lubricant – it just takes a lot of time and patience. And generally people going at it in slash don't have much of either." She coughed and smiled at Kate, who put down the marker at long last. "No homework again, but I will be giving you a test on dubious lube next class period. If you can still handle your lunch, then run along now!"

Quickly the students emptied out of the sitting room, some of them still groaning in discomfort about the very thought of putting things like alcohol and melted sugar up their arses.

* * *

"Molly's teaching?" Sally Donovan demanded as she strode into Scotland Yard after lunch.

"In the terms of Sherlock Holmes, obviously," replied Lestrade, emerging from the canteen with a mug of coffee. The two of them proceeded towards Lestrade's office. "Is she needed?"

"Autopsy, immediately. There's been another murder. Professor Cairns found him outside her planetarium."

"You think it's connected?"

Sally shrugged. "Possibly. Name's Tristram Holmwood. Not sure if he's connected to the other victims, but his manner of death looks a lot like Pepperidge's. Which is why I needed Molly's opinion."

"You could have consulted Sher –"

"I'm not going to the Freak," sneered Sally. "Besides, he left for Baskerville this morning. John told me he's been pestering Stapleton about the resurrection process. They're still working that out."

"Still?" demanded Lestrade. They reached his office; he entered and set down his mug. "Good god, what's taking them so long?"

"Search me." Sally shrugged. "Students will be the next to go, I guarantee it. And Freak's slacking on his work."

"No, he's investigating," John's voice cut in. The ex-Army doctor strode in with a hedgehog on his shoulder. "He's investigating away…"

"Just got away from the surgery?" Sally asked.

"Yeah, unfortunately." John sighed and set down the hedgehog on Lestrade's desk, where it promptly scurried about and scratched up the papers. Lestrade groaned and took a sip of his coffee.

He gagged. "This is decaf!" he exclaimed.

Sally snickered. "Yeah, Anderson thought that that'd be for the best –"

"Decaf!" Lestrade shook the mug. "I will _shoot_ him in the face!"

"Sherlock might take your word for that," laughed John. "Anyway, Dawson still not talking?"

"You know Sherlock thinks she's genuine," Lestrade sighed.

"Well, Freak's been wrong before," Sally sneered.

John bristled slightly. "He's been right more times than you," he pointed out.

"Yeah, but we can't rule out Ava Dawson since she is still at the centre of everything." Sally looked out the window.

"Moriarty's got nothing to do with it, correct?"

"Airtight alibis for him and his crew," replied Lestrade with a grimace. "As far as we can see, at least. And where is he?"

John grimaced. "Last time I saw, at a cobbling lesson." He rolled his eyes as his phone sounded the text alert, pulled it out, and raised an eyebrow. "Sherlock's heading back. Messrs Ben and Marty are getting frustrated with Stapleton."

"How long is it going to take them? We'll all be dead if they don't…"

"If they don't hurry up and get on with it? Yeah, my thoughts precisely." Mr. Ben strode into the room at that moment, hands on his hips and brows furrowed. "It's honestly not that hard; other OFUs have already mastered the art of resurrection, and we did manage to bring back the victims of the various crimes committed in the show… but I suppose it's because it's so out of line with the logic and science of the show?"

"Baskerville's trying to decode what it is exactly that other schools are using to resurrect the students," explained Mr. Marty to the others as he walked into Lestrade's office as well. Lestrade vaguely wondered when his office became their unofficial meeting room. "But we've already gotten them the components, so…"

"Did Sherlock tell you when he'd be back?" Mr. Ben asked, frowning.

John scowled. "Not a word."

* * *

Rose yawned over her eggs. She had expressly suggested the afternoon for this plotting session, but Elijah had insisted they do it in the morning. He'd bloody insisted they meet up to discuss in the morning instead of the afternoon and now Rose was functioning on three hours of sleep (wasn't her fault she'd been up so late procrastinating) and about to fall asleep right on her plate of breakfast.

God, she hated group projects.

"So, need tea?" Elijah asked from his seat across from her at Speedy's, his eyes mischievous.

"Fuck you and your morning personness," Rose snapped. "Coffee will work better."

Elijah ordered her a cup of coffee with a grin. "So. Alternate universes."

"Everything's been done already," replied Rose, rolling her eyes. "Harry Potter, the Hobbit, everything."

"Sure about that?"

"I'm pretty sure someone, inspired by the Cucumberpatch, is going to write an AU with Sherlock as a cucumber and John as a tomato."

"Isn't that basically Sheerluck Holmes from Veggie Tales?"

"My point exactly."

Elijah laughed. "I did see something where Sherlock was broccoli and John was a potato, so yes."

"And Bakery Street!" Rose threw her hands in the air. "Someone on this campus is going to write a Bakery Street AU. I can sense it."

"Yeah, there _is_ a Bakery Street at this school that sells Sherloaf and Mycrust Holmeses and Johnnycake Wheatsons," Elijah sipped his tea thoughtfully. "And yeah, a lot of the predictable ones have been done. Patrick Scott Harper's doing Holmestuck, for example."

"But there's already two major fanadventures for that," Rose pointed out. "A Scandal in Skaia's been on hiatus for months and who knows when it'll be back. And I don't know what happened to the Study in Sburb."

"Me neither." A pause. "What about… no, they've already got plenty for His Dark Materials… Chameleon covers The Sentinel pretty well… there's already a huge mass crossover for the Avengers…"

"Let's not even venture into Wholock," grumbled Rose. "Moffat only needs a blank cheque to write that one."

"House M.D.?"

"Why would you do that?" Rose ate a bite of egg with a grimace. "The last episode was Reichenbach all over again!"

"The Little Mermaid?"

"Now you're just grasping at straws." Rose giggled. "I'm sure if it exists, it's been done."

"Please, Harry Potter is still the rule thirty-four of crossovers," Elijah replied, rolling his eyes. "What if we modernised a Study in Emerald?"

Another pause. Rose frowned. "A Study in Emerald?"

"Short story by Neil Gaiman. Except actually… well, I'm not sure if I want to drag Cthulhu into what we'll be doing…"

"…Cthulhu?"

Elijah sighed. "Look. Neil Gaiman wrote this piece that begins with us thinking that it's Watson writing about Holmes, going out to solve some case involving a cult that worships Cthulhu. But it turns out that it's actually Sebastian Moran who's writing about Moriarty, and the killers are Holmes and Watson, who are pretending to be an actor and a playwright, respectively."

"So?"

"So I think we could modernise the role reversal by having an actor Holmes and a playwright Watson who are actually a consulting criminal and a hit man, pitted against consulting detective Moriarty and his blogger Moran."

"But no Lovecraftian Monsters?"

Elijah shrugged. "How much do you know about the Mythos?"

"Not a lot. Had some friends who were into it," Rose replied, remembering a certain friend she had met over the summer who had enjoyed the Cthulhu Mythos to no end. She smiled quickly at Elijah as the waitress finally arrived with her coffee. "Thanks," she told the waitress before grimacing as she took a sip. Whoever invented mornings needed to be dragged into the middle of the street at daybreak and shot.

"So, what do you think about that?"

"About what?"

"A Study in… well, Chartreuse or something. Where Sherlock is the consulting criminal and John his loyal hitman. Maybe John could have been sent to kill Hope or something for fear of exposing Sherlock's network to consulting detective Moriarty?"

"Doesn't sound awful," replied Rose, shrugging. "Did he say if we could put original characters into it?"

Elijah frowned. "No, but if you're going to put Rosie in there, then don't bother."

"I didn't say I was going to – wait. How the _hell_ do you know about her?"

"You're jawnlockprincess221b, right?"

Rose felt all of the blood rushing to her face. It sounded ridiculous. Her penname sounded ridiculous.

_Note to self, change penname at first opportunity._

"…Yeah."

"Practically everything I need to know about you is on your profile." A pause. "Shit, that sounds creeper."

"Yes, it does."

Elijah laughed. "Well, you know. You have that huge bio with all of those copy-paste memes and stuff. Plus if Rosie's a self-insert Mary Sue, then chances are her name's based off yours –"

_Splash_! The empty coffee mug dangled from Rose's hands.

"She's not a Mary Sue!" she snapped, fury rising in her as she stood up. "She's not!"

Elijah looked up at her through sopping wet curls. "Prove it."

Rose looked down at her feet. Prove that Rosie wasn't a Sue? But that's… that's unfair! Rosie was just like her, only better, and…

Rose opened her mouth to toss out some half-hearted response, but she was saved by the sight of Sherlock walking past Speedy's Café, ostensibly to cross the street. She strode to the window to see Lestrade emerging from a police car (cheered on by the members of Lestrade's Cohort, whose leader was the indomitable and Mystrade-loving Ruth Tamara). Across the street, the dorms were being marked off as a crime scene; panicked faces of students flitted to and fro from the windows.

"What's going on?" Rose demanded as she left the café to talk to Ruth Tamara at the kerb. She pointed to 221B, whose entrance was surrounded by mini-Hounds as per usual. Sherlock had walked back into 221B, and emerged moments later with a dressing-gown-clad John Watson.

Elijah, sullenly mopping coffee from his forehead, joined Rose at the crime scene tape as John and Sherlock ducked under and entered the dorms (Jinx tried to scream her declaration of love at Sherlock, but Alder the mini-Hound had at that moment decided that her nose was going to be its next chew toy. The other fangirls were quick to back down). "Another murder, perhaps," he remarked.

"No shit, Sherlock," deadpanned Rose. "But who?"

"A student, probably," Ruth whispered.

"Megan Vaughan," Lestrade spoke up as he walked past to the crime scene. Ruth Tamara swooned in his direction, but crashed onto the pavement for her troubles. "Coordinates were given in a spray-painted message in Pentonville this morning. We're doing our best. Don't worry."

Rose frowned. "Are we allowed into the dorms?" she asked.

"Nowhere near the empty segments of the second floor," replied Lestrade, vanishing into the dorms. Rose sighed, and turned to Elijah.

"How many murders is that, then?" she asked.

Elijah started counting on his fingers, brows furrowed. "Hamish Wilson, Eugenia Pepperidge, Emily Watts, and I heard rumours about another one, Tristram Holmwood. So that's four murders in about two weeks, not counting this one?"

"And Sherlock hasn't solved it yet?" groaned Rose. "It can't be that stumping. What if we tried solving it?"

Elijah snorted. "Yeah, like that's going to happen. Like they're going to let us students onto the case." Still, as Rose ducked under the tape to enter the dorms, she could hear him following her. They headed for the second floor landing, Rose looking around in a mad search for clues. Observe, she reminded herself. It's what Sherlock would do!

And speaking of Sherlock, the consulting detective was striding down the hallway again, typing at his mobile madly with John following close behind. "It's rather transparent now," Sherlock was saying as he walked past the two students, not even acknowledging their presence (John sent them wary glances, though, especially at Elijah). "The link between all of them, at least."

"What is it, then?"

Sherlock said nothing for a long while. John sighed.

"Sherlock, I think it's best that we close this case and catch the culprit before more people get hurt."

"He's only going to target students from here on out," Sherlock replied. "It won't matter."

"Won't matter?" demanded John. "Sherlock, these are_ students_ he'll harm! Or has already harmed!"

"And since when do you care about them?"

"Since you decided to get all sociopath on –"

"They need to be taught this lesson! It's painfully obvious why all of the victims died, John! If you'd even bothered to think about it, you'd notice it, too!"

"And the killer?"

"Obvious as well." Sherlock walked away down the stairwell, leaving Rose and Elijah to walk down the rest of the corridor.

The body was located in one of the formerly deserted bedrooms, guarded by mini-Hounds. The door was open, and Rose and Elijah peered in over the heads of the menacing glowing puppies. Lestrade and his team were elsewhere, but obviously were not done with the crime scene. Forensics equipment sat away from the body, pale blue coveralls lay on the bed. Megan Vaughan laid face-down at the foot of one of the beds with Crimsun spraypaint adorning the wall behind her.

_I WILL KILL AGAIN._

"What… that's…" Rose felt a chill run down her spine; she valiantly struggled with the urge to vomit. "That's…"

"Clubbed," Elijah said immediately, peering into the room as much as he could with Alder and serlock growling at him. "Like some of the other victims. Killed by a blow to the back of the head."

"Is that like… his… whatchamacallit… mode of operation or something?"

"_Modus operandi_?" asked Elijah. "Possibly. But some of the murders were made to look like suicides, and others didn't have spraypaint at the scene of the crime."

"Hm." Rose sighed, taking a step back from the doorway just as the first footfalls of police began to echo down the hallway. "Lestrade's returning."

They stepped away from the scene as Lestrade and his team returned, clad in blue coveralls. Anderson glowered at them; Rose wrinkled her nose. God, his hair looked so ugly and greasy! Stupid dinosaur fucker shouldn't even be here!

"There's something odd, don't you think?" Elijah remarked as they left the corridor, Rose still mulling over what she'd seen.

"What?" Rose was already planning for her next step – she had to figure out who killed Megan, after all. She wasn't like Sherlock – these were her fellow classmates dying and she had to get to the bottom of the case for them (or herself), right?

"You'd think with that much blood and brains poking out the back of her head she would have bled a lot more over the carpet. But the carpet's almost spotless, marked only by the little pool that'd collected in her time mouldering away over here. And there probably should've been blood and brain bits all over the walls and stuff, but that's not the case. It's a very messy body in a very clean room."

"You're…" Rose paused. "No way."

"Yes way."

"You're saying she wasn't killed here?"

"Uh-huh."

"Then where could've she…"

"She was sent to Pentonville, remember?"

"Killed at Pentonville and dragged all the way here? That's ridiculous."

Elijah snorted. "You can't rule it out. Sherlock said that he's not going to solve the case to teach us a lesson. I think the killer's trying to do the same, too."

* * *

**Notes:** Shamelessly using one of my own pieces as the project. Oops.


	6. The Ten Commandments

**Notes: **Trigger warnings for discussion of the Reapersex controversy (so rape, rape apologism?) and spoiler warnings for _The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes_.

**Additional disclaimer:** I do not own Arthur Kirkland from _Axis Powers Hetalia_. But I do kinda own IAHF. Kinda.

* * *

**Part VI**

"Morning. What would you like?"

"I haven't seen you here." Rose raises an eyebrow at the young man working the counter of Speedy's. "Well, I haven't seen you here before. Um. Yeah."

The young man beamed at her; his nametag said 'Steven Marcus' on it. "Just moved over from Bristol for school."

"Oh, nice." Rose blushed a bit, handing him two supply tickets. "The breakfast panini and a cup of coffee with two sugars, thank you."

"Coming right up, then." Steven continued to smile as he took her tickets, and strode away to fill her order. Rose considered lingering at the counter just to marvel at how a guy was making her a sandwich, but thought better of it and went to take a seat.

Elijah and Melissa entered the café at that moment, Elijah yawning widely and Melissa reading yet another book on hedgehog care. Rose waved them over; Elijah took a seat while Melissa went to the counter to order food.

"You're not hungry?" Rose asked, raising an eyebrow. It was yet another Monday; they had Deductions for Dummies in half an hour, and most occupants of the café looked only half-alive anyway. Elijah shrugged.

"I'll get something to-go in a moment," he mumbled, leaning back in his seat and rubbing his eyes. "What a night!"

"Why, what?"

"Wank everywhere." Elijah rolled his eyes. "That, and apparently John was yelling something about getting too many red pants in the post."

"What?" Rose scowled. "I didn't hear any of it."

"Sherlock woke him at three in the morning with violin music, they had a row over that, and apparently a huge pile of red pants dropped into their flat, all addressed to John."

"And this morning," continued Melissa as she came over, "apparently the postmen were snickering about the huge boxes full of red pants that they were delivering –"

"Pants? What's so bad about –?"

"British slang for underwear, stupid," Melissa explained.

Rose pouted. "I knew that."

"Sure you did."

At that moment, though, Steven brought Rose's coffee over. She took it, grinning at him. "Thanks," she said, smelling the freshly-brewed coffee gratefully. Ah, surely this must be the Elixir of Life.

"You're new," remarked Melissa, raising an eyebrow at Steven.

"Freshly hired," he replied, smiling. Elijah raised an eyebrow.

"Freshly hired?" he echoed.

"Came from Bristol," explained Steven. "Do you need anything?"

"I think I'd like the breakfast sandwich, thanks," Elijah said, nodding.

"I'll bring that over." Steven winked at Rose before disappearing again, whose cheeks heated up. Melissa snickered.

"I think he likes you," she teased, nudging Rose, who chose not to dignify that with an answer.

Their breakfast arrived moments later, and Rose tucked into her Panini quickly. "What was that about wank, though?" she asked Elijah as he tore off a segment of his sandwich and chewed thoughtfully at it.

"Oh, that," dismissed Melissa. "Arguing in the Bart's computer lab. Apparently Aviva Von Lilite and Mariah Black were arguing about some Johnlock comic again, and then someone else came in… what was her name, Cale?"

"I forgot. But she got on my nerves," agreed Elijah.

"How did they even find the Johnlock comic?" Rose wondered. "I mean, we're not allowed to access Fanfiction or AO3 or Tumblr…"

"They have their ways. I bet Moriarty gave them the override code. He does like to cause trouble," Melissa pointed out.

But no sooner had they settled down to their breakfasts did the door to the café slam open and Kitty Riley run in, giant Crimsun megaphone in hand and a voice that meant Serious Business.

"Everyone to Buckingham Palace. _Right now_!"

* * *

"If I find_ one_ more set of red pants, I – "

"Cheer up, John. Better those than the bee pants people keep on sending me." Sherlock Holmes didn't even look up from his book. "I like bees, but _seriously_?"

"Those were hilarious. You should actually wear them."

"I refuse to give the fangirls any more ideas." Sherlock turned a page and idly stroked behind Donavon's ear. The mini-Hound barked and drooled all over the chair.

"I thought you didn't like Sally," John pointed out, looking at Donovan's name-mistake.

"Donavon is a perfectly loveable mini-Hound, unlike her namesake." Sherlock turned another page. "Remind me to pester Messrs Ben and Marty later today."

"What for?" John had gotten himself a mug of tea and was drinking it. Quite enthusiastically.

"Well, first, a warning about tomorrow's impromptu visit. And next, a seminar on Mary Sues."

"Oh, right, that thing you and Moriarty were collaborating on." The two crazy geniuses could now sometimes be seen (on the days Sherlock wasn't investigating a case and Moriarty wasn't off blowing things up or making fangirls into shoes, usually with the forced participation of Clay Bristol. The poor Holmesian fanboy had demanded a transfer back to the Victorian-era Baker Street Fanfiction Academy, and Mr Marty wasn't about to deny him that. Bristol got on everyone's nerves) lurking around in dark corners of pubs together, bent over a laptop and typing furiously. John often wondered what the hell they were up to.

"Close. We weren't collaborating on a seminar. We were collaborating on how many ways our reality could kill a Mary Sue. He's a consulting Suethor, and I'm the consulting Sue slayer. It makes sense."

John squinted, and shook his head. "No, it doesn't."

Sherlock rolled his eyes. "You might as well re-educate yourself on what constitutes a Mary Sue," he remarked, "considering that there's going to be one in this very flat tomorrow." He tossed a packet of papers at John, who caught them with a raised eyebrow. "Go on, then."

John frowned at him, before taking a seat and starting to read. Sherlock stroked Donavon like a villain would stroke a white cat, and Donavon did a very convincing low, menacing purr.

And drooled all over Sherlock's trousers, but that was beside the point.

* * *

"So, a little bird told me that there was a wankstorm in your ranks yesterday," huffed Irene as the students fearfully gathered in the Sex Ed classroom.

Immediately Cale Serfe leapt to her feet. "Mariah Black was being a rape apologist!"

Dead. Silence. Cale blinked at the lack of reaction, and shakily sat back down. Rose frowned and looked over at the Time… Lady (there was also a Time Lord on campus, Matt Chorell, who looked more like the protagonist in an anime than an actual Time Lord). Mariah rolled her eyes.

"That's totally not true," she snapped. "I don't codone rape. That comic depicted rough sex."

"We didn't see John give consent!" snapped Cale.

"He gave _mental _consent, in case you didn't notice!"

"That doesn't bloody count! And Sherlock bit his di –"

"Enough, enough!" huffed Irene. "I've ordered you all to report here instead of Deductions for Dummies because of this very issue. Some people claim that particular comic triggered rape victims because of the rough nature of the sex depicted. The artists apologised, but the accusers continued to rant about how the contents of the comic had dubious consent without trigger warnings and that the people who were defending the comic were therefore rape apologists."

There was a chorus of "ohhhhhhs" through the ranks of the less clued-in students.

Irene paused. "Both sides are wrong," she snapped. "It was not right for the artists to not put out warnings for questionable content, but it was also not right for those accusers to tell others how to react to the comic, or tell other victims of sexual abuse how to deal with their trauma. There was a particularly nasty incident between one of the comic's defenders and an accuser, where the accuser was very, _very_ rude."

Silence. Rose felt uncomfortable, especially considering Irene was saying all of this. Wasn't that hypocritical?

Kenzie Chase raised a hand and voiced Rose's thoughts. "I think there's also something to be said about your line of work, Ms Adler," she pointed out. "As well as your characterisation in Scandal."

"My… 'recreational scolding'… is never without consent. My clients come in here _expecting _what I give them," Irene replied coolly.

"Then what about your repeated propositioning of Sherlock? I don't think he enjoyed that very much. You texted him often, he ignored it –it's obviously a sign that he's not interested – and you still persisted."

Irene shifted. "A lot of people find my characterisation dubious, perhaps even sexist. They have a point, considering my Victorian counterpart isn't… as brazen, perhaps? But I would like to point out that it's implied that I called Moriarty at the pool, causing him to call off the snipers, and that I did outwit Sherlock several times before the end. The latter part of my episode was taken almost directly from _The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes_, where Holmes took in a woman with amnesia who was actually a German spy, and he only discovered that when Mycroft told him. The fact that Mycroft had to tell Sherlock I was playing him is proof of just how much I duped him."

"Still, it would probably have been better had you not required rescuing at the end, like a damsel –"

"Who said I was a damsel? I think of it as returning the favour," Irene retorted. "We're getting off track. The point of this little chat is to tell you all to label questionable content, and not be a dick about it."

Silence. Irene raised an eyebrow at Mariah, who was squirming in her seat. "Miss Black?"

"Um. I… well. I just thought that it's the artists' choice to draw whatever they want, and while I agree that it should have come with a warning, just because it's dubious consent doesn't mean they have to stop drawing it – I mean, there are a lot of dub-con and non-con fics in this fandom, like in all fandoms, and… uhm… not a lot of people raise such a stink about _them_, you know? And besides, how else was Sherlock going to act in that situation? It was a roleplay comic – I mean, the artists can't draw the reactions of the character they're_ not_ playing – and Sherlock doesn't give a damn about social niceties, so it would have taken more insistence from John before he knew to back off. And John didn't decide to end the encounter, but instead encouraged it by doing pretty much the same thing back at Sherlock."

"John specifically said 'get off' –" Cale retorted.

"Yeah, telling Sherlock to get off his _dick_, not stop the entire thing. It was a reaction to the biting."

"You can't just bite someone's dick without getting permission, and John didn't give him –"

"Sherlock warned him before the blowjob started that he was going to bite if John distracted him, and John did distract him –"

"Dick-biting could_ harm _someone –"

"Some people are into that sort of thing! You can't go around imposing your opinions on kinks to other people. That's why they're called _kinks_!"

Irene coughed. "That's enough, the two of you!" she snapped. "Moral of the story is warnings. Make sure you warn against things that are questionable. The other moral of the story is to stop making a mountain out of a bloody molehill. Off to Deductions for Dummies, _now_!"

* * *

Bakery Street had shelves and shelves of baked goods in all shapes and sizes, enough to satisfy even Mycroft Holmes's cravings. Rose and Elijah stepped in to pick up some Lestrudel and Sherloafs before closeting themselves away at the Cucumberpatch to continue their project for Lestrade.

"You should try the Jam Watsons," someone snickered from next to Rose, and the Johnlock fangirl turned to see…

Another Johnlock fangirl. Kass Wan giggled slightly, before collecting herself and sighing.

"Alan Cablen's being a dick," she said.

"Call me when he isn't. That may be never," Rose replied. Kass shrugged.

"He misconstrued Benedict's opinion on _Downtown Abbey_ again and then took his words about_ Elementary_ out of context. Why do you think people are so eager to paint Benedict in a negative light?"

"Because of overexposure to Mr Ben." Rose snickered.

"Yeah, well, Mr Ben is just unpleasant. _Benedict_, however, isn't."

Rose fought with her inner urge to hunt down Alan and strangle him. "Of course he isn't! He's dreamy with pretty eyes and a pretty smile, and pretty hands, and a pretty ars –"

"Kass! There you are!" Another voice broke through the conversation as Renee Robins rushed in. "Mischa Byrnes is out of control! She's attacking Alan!"

Kass paled, set the Jam Watson back onto the shelf, and dashed out after Renee. Rose wondered where they were going – ostensibly to prise Mischa off Alan before they all get landed in detention, perhaps. Not her division.

"So you're just going to get the Irene Puddingler?" the clerk at the register demanded. Rose landed into the present with a loud (in her mind) thunk, and nodded as she set the cup of pudding on the counter. Next to her, Elijah stood with a scowl on his face and a bag of Lestrudels and Sherloafs in his arms.

Rose paid for the pudding with a ticket, and left Bakery Street with Elijah in tow. "What's with the long face?" she demanded of the boy, who frowned, blinked, and grinned very unconvincingly at her.

"Oh! Well, that's nothing to… worry about…" Elijah replied, shrugging. "Lestrudel?"

They reached the Cucumberpatch and leaned against the fence, Rose getting out a spoon and digging into her pudding. It was delicious, if not a little saccharine. Oh well.

"I… have my suspicions about that new server at Speedy's," Elijah remarked after a moment.

Rose raised an eyebrow. "Really?" she asked, frowning. "Why?"

"He… likes you a lot."

"And that's a problem, because…"

"Random people who aren't part of the school shouldn't really bother us."

Rose frowned. "Problem?"

"Yeah. I don't get a very good feeling about him."

"Or maybe you're just jealous."

Elijah snorted. "No, I'm not."

"Liar."

"Am not."

"Are too."

"No."

"Yes."

"Fuck you."

"Your place or mine?"

There was a long pause as the two looked at each other, and then simultaneously burst into laughter.

"That was uncalled for!" chortled Elijah, clutching his sides. One of the Cucumberpatch cucumbers glowered at them.

"You deserved it!"

"I didn't!"

"Oh, yes you did!"

They laughed some more, and then Rose sobered up to take out Lestrade's assignment and the notes they had for it. "So, A Study in Chartreuse?" she asked.

Elijah snapped into business-mode almost audibly. "Yes, consulting criminal Sherlock. Um. Are we going to write it from John's perspective, or Moran's like in the original?"

"I'd say John's? To more or less keep it in line with the AU thing. I dunno."

"I guess it's easier to write like John than anyone else, considering Moran technically doesn't exist."

Rose nodded. "Yeah." She had tried writing Sherlock before. It'd failed spectacularly. After all, Sherlock's goals in life were so drastically different from those of a normal person, and Rose hadn't been sure how she was going to get her other OC, Ally Gilbertson, into Sherlock's heart. So she'd made him nicer. That was a problem.

Sherlock Holmes just didn't _do _nice, did he? She could see it clearly from the nasty glares and the detentions he assigned people like giving out candy. Just today he'd landed Leevee into detention for thinking too loudly and stupidly.

The guy had issues. John was a saint for putting up with him.

"So, we're going to begin with John returning, wounded and disheartened, from Afghanistan. And he gambles away his money because he's trying to cope, and his therapist thinks he's suffering from PTSD when all he really wants to do is go out and fight again. So he gambles, and one day in the middle of his game Mike Stamford comes into the den and offers him a job for a man named Sherry Vernet."

Rose snapped out of her musings to look, wide-eyed, at Elijah.

"Sherry Vernet?"

"His acting name, obviously. He can't be Sherlock Holmes all the time if he leads a double life, right? So he has the actor persona, Sherry Vernet. And he's recently signed on to the in-universe Moffat and Gatiss's new adaptation of Professor Challenger."

"And who's that?"

"This adventurous man who is pretty much larger than life, a jack-of-all trades, and did a bunch of Time Lord-ish adventures."

"Why would you say that?" Rose asked, frowning.

"Because he does a lot of science fiction, with supernatural elements, a cloud of poisonous ether, and a plateau where dinosaurs live in the modern – at the time – era."

"Sounds exciting."

"So this version of Sherlock Holmes has to a really good actor, to play a character very far from his own analytical persona."

Rose giggled. "That would be hilarious."

"My thoughts exactly." Elijah had that manic look in his eyes that suggested he was Very Excited about something.

"All right, so what are they trying to do in this version of Pink, then?" Rose asked after a moment, as Elijah scrawled out their ideas on a sheet of notebook paper. "I mean, they can't solve the case –"

"They're going to sabotage Moriarty the consulting detective, and John's been assigned to assassinate Jeff Hope, the cabbie."

"Why would he do that?"

"Because…" Elijah frowned. "Because Jeff's going to do something stupid that will expose Sherlock's criminal network. Like blow up a hospital or something."

"All right, makes sense." Rose nodded. "What about something smaller, though? Like… you know how he's originally sponsored? Sherlock took away the sponsorship because Jeff kept on stealing the mobiles of the victims, and Sherlock knows Moriarty's going to discover that. And Jeff gets angry because he wants his children to have the money and he'd already killed three people, so he plans to kill Sherlock, too."

"Yes, good!" Elijah beamed, writing that down as well. "You heard Lestrade – we have to keep that connection between Sherlock and John, and we have to keep Sherlock on top of the game. Didn't Lestrade, like, give us a set of rules about these sorts of things?"

"Yeah… it's somewhere in my notes." Rose checked her notebook, and found the list.

_The Ten Commandments of Sherlock Fanfiction_

_1) Thou shalt not make a character smarter than Sherlock Holmes, unless it be his brother Mycroft, consulting criminal James Moriarty, or 'The Woman' Irene Adler. _

_2) Thou shalt not make Sherlock Holmes put emotion before realism without plausible reason._

_3) Thou shalt not cheapen the friendship between Sherlock Holmes and John Watson._

_4) Thou shalt not defy canon without plausible reason._

_5) Thou shalt not let thy annoying OC insubordinate the Yard. They only let Sherlock do it because they need him. _

_6) Thy OC must not hog the spotlight. The road to Mary Suedom is paved with thieves._

_7) Thou shalt provide a plausible reason for changing the sexual orientations of the characters, or bestowing the 'gift' of pregnancy upon male characters. _

_8) Thou shalt not create mini-Hounds. _

_9) Honour thy spellcheck, thy beta, and thy constructive criticism._

_10) Honour Gatiss's presence in thy fandom, and spell his name with one T._

"Lovely, isn't it?" remarked Elijah as they read over the commandments.

"Right ray of sunshine, they are," agreed Rose. "So, are we going to start writing today, or…?"

* * *

Mr Ben frowned at the two characters sitting in his office. They looked almost alike, except one was dressed like a pirate and the other like Victorian-era Sherlock.

"So, you mean to say both of you are named Arthur Kirkland?" he asked, frowning at them.

"Aye. Me name be Pirate Arthur, an' he be called Deerstalker Arthur," grunted the pirate.

"From the… International Academy of Hetalia Fanfiction?" asked Mr Marty, looking up from the paperwork. It would be so much easier to deal with this had the forms not been in, well, pig Latin.

"Which has been taken over by a legion of Mary Sues, yes," Deerstalker Arthur drawled.

"And so the two of you are refugees from that."

"Obviously."

"Any particular reason why?"

"This idiot's a fan of the show, and I flock to where I will find my equals in intelligence."

"Well, you certainly won't find it in Anderson," resounded the voice of Sherlock Holmes from the doorway. Moments later, in came the consulting detective with a scowl and a flurry of coats and scarves. John trailed slightly behind.

Both Arthur Kirklands stared at him.

"H-how… how-how-how did yeh s-survive…" Pirate Arthur stuttered.

Sherlock opened his mouth, but Mr Ben held up his hand. "Later," he snapped. "What do you want, Holmes?"

"Seminar on Mary Sues."

"Also, did you approve the paperwork for the, er, assassins?" asked John.

"Oh yes, the PPC correspondents. Yes, I did."

"They'll be here tomorrow with a Sue," Sherlock added, raising an eyebrow as Mr Marty consulted the calendar. "When can you schedule the seminar?"

"This upcoming weekend, actually," the Course Coordinator remarked.

"Excellent. Come on, John –"

"It's the barista!" Deerstalker Arthur suddenly declared.

Sherlock paused, and spun on his heel. "What?" he asked.

"The killer. It's the barista. I deduced it from the state of mud on your shoes."

"Of course it's not the barista – there are thousands of baristas in London, after all." Sherlock sniffed. "You're more incompetent than I'd anticipated."

Deerstalker Arthur coloured vividly. "I was the one who found the members of the Anti –"

"Anti-England group back at your OFU, yes, I can tell from the marks on your right thumb."

Deerstalker Arthur slipped his hands back into his sleeves. "And what else can you tell about me?"

"That you're literally Mycroft's position in the British government and that you have repressed feelings towards your adoptive –"

"If you're going to talk about Alfred, why don't we discuss your John –?"

"There is nothing to discuss regarding my friendship with my flatmate –"

"And there is nothing to discuss about the Special Relationship!"

"Girls, calm down," sighed John from behind Sherlock. "If you two are going to stay at MBSFA for the duration, I suppose we'll have to get you settled in at the Yard –"

No sooner had he said that did a loud moan fill the air. John glared nastily at Sherlock – or rather, Sherlock's coat pocket, in which his mobile resided.

"Irene's texted you again," remarked the ex-soldier with a clench of his fists.

"Obviously," Sherlock replied, rolling his eyes. He took out the mobile. "Ah, there's another one."

"Another body?" echoed everyone else in the room.

"Another student body, yes. Kass Wan, found in the vicinity of Bakery Street. And this was the accompanying message."

He held up the mobile, now bearing a picture of the dead fangirl. In Crimsun letters was the threatening message:

_THE PROFESSOR IS IN._

* * *

"I… I don't…" Rose stammered as she stared at the body as it passed by on a stretcher, into the ambulance – even if that ambulance was more or less a flashy funeral hearse at this point. "She was just alive… I saw her!"

"I know," Elijah soothed, patting her shoulder gingerly. Rose felt the tears rise, but she suppressed them with the last bits of willpower that she had left.

"How are you taking it so… well?" Rose's resolve was splintering. The lump in her throat felt more like a mountain, and she wanted to cry – she really wanted to cry –

"I'm not," Elijah replied, and Rose looked up to see his eyes puffy with tears. He had been there, too, in Bakery Street, listening to Kass complain about Alan Cablen. He knew, too, just how alive she _had_ been.

That was all the encouragement she needed to let loose, to sob against Elijah's shoulder, and Elijah didn't pull away because he needed the solidity of another person near him as well – they hadn't even known Kass, and yet her death affected them.

"She shipped Johnlock," Rose said suddenly.

"So did Megan Vaughan," Elijah pointed out.

"Do you think…?" Rose trailed off, frowning.

"It could be, but we can't jump to conclusions there."

"What about the other murder victims, then?" Rose demanded. "What were their names again?"

"Hamish Wilson was the first one –"

"Hamish Watson-Holmes!" Rose exclaimed, eyes lighting up.

"Eugenia Pepperidge –"

"Eugenia Watson!"

Elijah blinked. "You can't be serious," he breathed. "Emily Watts?"

"Emily Watson! From that one fic… _Getting Better_, wasn't it?"

"Tristram Holmwood?"

"Tristram Holmes from that same fic! They're all OC children of John, or Sherlock, or John and Sherlock…"

"So there's definitely a link between the murders, because at first they're all named after the children, and then the killer changed to Johnlock fangirls –"

"Either he ran out of lovechildren to kill, or he was just biding his time, throwing Sherlock off the scent. He broke the pattern for a reason, right?"

Elijah's manic glint was back. "We have to tell the Staff about this!"

And at that, Rose's euphoria came to a screeching halt. "No," she said suddenly. "I don't think… no. It's our lead. We should investigate it by ourselves. I mean, what if it was wrong?"

"The names are too coincidental –"

"But don't you agree that it could just be coincidence?"

"Yes, but –"

"Sherlock probably guessed at it already; he did say he's pretty much solved the case. But if we tell the Yard, they'll draw conclusions, and then they might target…"

The two of them paused and looked at each other.

"The students who hate Johnlock," Elijah muttered. Rose nodded.

"So we're not going to tell them, because we're not going to harm our peers. Clear?"

Elijah nodded. "Clues?"

Rose beamed. "The game's afoot!"

* * *

**Notes:** Yes, those OCs do exist. Hamish Watson-Holmes is a fandom-wide phenomenon, often played by Asa Butterfield as a kid and Colin Morgan as a teen. He is featured in the majority of Parent!lock fanfics as the child (conceived via surrogate mother) of John and Sherlock, and some of those fanfics are extremely good ("He Gets That from Me" by **crayoladinosaurs** and "Where I Cannot Find You" by **withoutawish** come to mind and both are roughly the Parent!lock equivalents to the infamous "Alone on the Water".) Eugenia Watson is from **madlori**'s "The Blog of Eugenia Watson". Tristram and Emily are from **nox_candida**'s fic series "Getting Better", an amazing read into the lives of Sherlock and John as single parents from the perspective of their children.

And Ava Dawson (Ava Watson) is also an OC daughter (actually niece) of John's, from **KeelieThompson1**'s "Paved With Love". It's another wonderful story that views the world of BBC _Sherlock_ through the eyes of a child, and it's amazing because you can really see her immaturity and innocence, and how she perceives Sherlock.


	7. A Study in Suedom

**Notes:** Information on the Mary Sue is taken from, of course, the Protectors of the Plot Continuum's wiki article. Several of the Sues mentioned actually do exist, but names are either not mentioned or changed to protect people's privacy (excluding Laura Adler, because she _did_ end up on campus).

* * *

**Part VII**

"Turn in your essays on race relations in the Sherlock fandom," snapped Sergeant Sally Donovan as the students filed into the Characterisation classroom on Wednesday afternoon. Anderson was sitting at the desk, pointedly avoiding the hate-filled glares of several fangirls.

Apparently the other night Remy Harper Mansfield and Marilyn Le had attempted to dye his pants Crimsun. They had underestimated the Anderson mini-Hounds, obviously, and therefore had been subject to cleaning the forensic analyst's lab from top to bottom until not even an ataxophobe could have an issue with it.

Marilyn was still complaining about her cramped arms, obviously.

"We're going to discuss today why Sherlock Holmes makes everyone else look stupid," Anderson announced as soon as the last students filed in and turned in their papers.

"Well, that's not fair – you just call him freak all the time –" Jinx huffed.

"Take a moment and close your eyes," Donovan suggested in a falsely sweet voice. "Put yourself into our shoes. Imagine that you've worked your arse off to get this job at the Met. To become a sergeant, to become a forensic analyst… think of all the classes you had to take to get here. Think of the hours of studying, the hours spent interning, the hours spent with criminology textbooks, forensic notes, everything."

Rose looked around, trying to see if anyone else had their eyes open. Donavon the mini-Hound glared at her, so Rose quickly closed her eyes again.

"Now imagine walking into work and hearing Lestrade say 'oh by the way, we're dragging in this genius amateur detective who can solve the case with a single glance and doesn't even need any formal training'. And then imagine meeting that genius amateur detective only to hear him put down your work, all those hours of studying you've suffered, and even your own intelligence. To him, you are nothing more than an incompetent, drooling fool simply because he is filthy stinking rich and privileged and a spoiled little brat of a genius."

"You sound like you really hate him," sneered Wymarc.

"Yeah, no shit," retorted Donovan. "Keep your eyes closed."

Rose squeezed her eyes shut and tried really hard to block out what Donovan was saying, but she could see hints of truth in there. Sherlock_ was_ a douchecanoe, Sherlock _was _rude and impetuous and spoiled, Sherlock_ did_ seem to think of them students as ignorant trolls –

"Keep imagining it. Watch Sherlock go about the crime scene, rattling off these observations at the speed of light, these details so minute you wouldn't have caught them. Watch him draw grand conclusions from these tiny details. It's like magic, but you don't want to believe that he's right, because if he's right he'll have more license to call you an incompetent twat. And then, of course, he's right."

"So what makes you call him freak?" asked Cale Serfe.

"Because you really can't believe how he could have gotten it right from that little detail. Like I said, it's like magic. How on earth does he find the solution to the problem based on an eighth of the evidence? It goes against everything you've been taught, and you begin to wonder if he only knows the answer because he committed the crime."

"But that's ridiculous –" Wymarc began, but Donovan was talking again.

"See, this genius isn't exactly a clean-record boy. You did your research on him. You know he's done drugs in the past, got into a tight spot because of cocaine and was only bailed out by his big brother. You see him go about and he's just so interested in the murder and not the victim, or he doesn't bother to piece together a motive, or he just gets up and leaves without a moment's notice, taking off to find some other obscure clue. You see his experiments – unsavoury in the extreme, ranging from explosions to dissections. You may have even tried to befriend him, but he turns you down because he has no friends. In the end, what else are you going to call him but a psychopath? He doesn't seem to care about people, he has an unsavoury past, he does callous things and doesn't regret them at all, never bothers apologising. You already are biased against him. Calling him freak, or psycho, or whatever is just a natural extension of that."

"But that doesn't justify bullying –" Jinx snapped.

"He bullies right back. Reads you your life story with a glance, calls out your deepest, darkest secrets, thoroughly humiliates you in front of everyone else. Sure, bullying is a cycle, but with Sherlock Holmes there is no way out. The only defence you have against his barbs are your own."

The students sat there, silent. Donovan watched some of them – especially the Sherlock's Ladies group – squirm in their seats.

"Open your eyes," Anderson drawled.

Rose opened her eyes and looked at Donovan and Anderson. Donovan was taking deep breaths, as if all of that had been extremely cathartic for her. It probably was. She'd probably been waiting half of her career to rant about Sherlock like that.

"Next to Sherlock Holmes, nearly everyone is an idiot," Anderson declared. "You can't assume we are incompetent because Sherlock says so. He speaks from a genius's perspective. If we couldn't do our jobs when he's not around, we'd have been sacked ages ago."

"So it'd be nice if you all could stop being judgemental little shits and realise that you're viewing us through Sherlock's perspective, and that next to him pretty much anyone will look stupid. Even you will look stupid."

"Nuh-uh!" snapped Jinx. "I am just as smart as –"

Donovan scoffed. "Thou shalt not be smarter than Sherlock Holmes," she intoned. "I can't believe I'm saying that, but it's the truth. Unless you are Moriarty, or Mycroft, or Irene, you _will_ look stupid next to Sherlock."

Anderson checked his mobile and rolled his eyes. "Oh, and Watson wants us to mention that he's not useless."

"Yes. There are some of you out there who may have come from a tradition of seeing Watson or any other fictional sidekick as totally useless. We're here to say that calling_ our _Watson useless is absolute bullshit."

"In case you didn't notice, he _is_ the one who's less adverse to killing people," Anderson added.

"John Watson is supposed to be the one who manages to tap into Sherlock Holmes like no one else in the cast can," agreed Donovan. "He is supposed to reform Sherlock – or at least turn him into less of a douchecanoe. If you have your original character taking that role away from him, then we have a special section of the mini-Hound Hollow from Hell cordoned off for you."

"But I just want Sherlock to discover love with –"

"No," Donovan said immediately. "Sherlock Holmes doesn't believe in love, or at least not in the way you believe it. If you're so desperate, you can get the full story straight from the horse's mouth tomorrow morning." She coughed, and turned back to the whiteboard. "Now shut up and get out your papers and pens so you can take notes on how the Yard is not useless at all and why you should not sass a police officer."

* * *

"Did you hear that there's a Sue on campus?" Patrick Scott Harper asked at dinner.

"No! Seriously?" Dasha Lynch demanded. "Who?"

"Someone called Laura Adler. She claims to be Irene's sister."

"I saw her! She came in on Tuesday, remember? During Grammar Boot Camp there were those two visitors…"

Rose looked up. "Visitors? I didn't see any visitors on Tuesday."

"You weren't there at the time," Detective Inspector Bridget Holmes declared. "Two PPC Agents visited –"

Rose shuddered. PPC bad. PPC Agents evil. Clad in black, slaying her precious Ally Gilbertson…

"Let me guess, you got PPC'd too," Magnolia Breckenridge remarked, patting Rose on the back.

"How –"

"You were twitching," Matt Chorell said helpfully.

Rose sighed. "It was traumatising," she said after a moment. "They… they mocked Ally…"

"They killed my Sue for this other fandom, a couple years back," Magnolia soothed. "It's not that bad –"

"Not that bad? I worked my butt off on making Ally the perfect girlfriend for Sherlock –"

"Perfect girlfriend?" Jinx was hovering nearby, looking rather murderous. "For _Sherlock_?"

"Don't even bother going into a tirade about how Irene is the only one for him," snapped Claire Travers.

"Well, John can't be –"

"No. Let's just say he prefers to fly solo and leave it at that!" snapped Renee Robins.

Rose looked around her at the brewing ship war. She sighed, feeling too tired to get involved. Bridget Holmes patted her back; Rose looked gloomily at her pasta and wished she was home, in her own bed, and not in the middle of some crazy murder mystery at some torturous school for BBC _Sherlock_ fanwriters.

"The PPC are meant to turn badfic into goodfic through parody," Leevee pointed out. "It's constructive criticism through mockery, you know? Showing you that your writing needs work, urging you to change your ways. Stuff like that."

"It's mean, though," Rose pointed out. "They're really mean about it."

"It'd only be a taste of what you'd face with a real critic." Levee turned her attention to her own food. "Anyway, I hear Sherlock, John, and Moriarty are setting up a seminar on Mary Sues this weekend, and that's what Laura Adler's for. Sherlock wants to dissect her and figure out the differences between her and a normal human."

Rose cringed. "We're_ eating_," she pointed out. Levee laughed.

Elijah took that moment to appear with his own food; he took the seat across from Rose. "So where are you with our project?" he asked.

"Oh, nearly done with the first scene," Rose replied, pulling out the papers and handing them to him. The boy looked them over, nodded, and tucked them into his own bag.

"I'll finish it up and start the next for you," he offered. "What about the mystery?"

Rose shrugged. "I tried asking the Yard if I could get the case file, but they laughed at me."

Elijah rolled his eyes. "Obviously. Did you find anything from the Bakery Street people?"

"Someone mentioned a girl named Ava Dawson. Apparently all the lovechildren victims were connected to her in some way."

"Did you find out more about her?"

"I just got that information; give me a break! Who do you think I am, Sherlock Holmes?"

Elijah opened his mouth as if to reply, thought better of it, and shut his mouth with a snap. "Sorry," he muttered, looking down at his plate. Rose, who had been gripping her fork like a knife, relaxed her hand and smiled.

"It's fine. I needed to be reminded anyway. I forget stuff so often, and I can't be arsed to do a lot of other things."

Elijah smiled back, over his food, and Rose found herself looking away, at the rest of the people gathered in the small Italian eatery. Angelo's was very nice, very ambient and quiet. She could get used to this.

"Looking forward to the seminar this weekend?" Elijah asked after a moment.

Rose shrugged. "It could be worse," she replied.

* * *

"She's not answering," Sherlock growled, staring murderously at his mobile. John raised an eyebrow. Across the sitting room, Mr Ben twiddled his thumbs and stared up at the ceiling.

"What exactly is that?" he asked, pointing up at an oddly-coloured stain near the light fixture. John shrugged.

"I dunno; probably one of Sherlock's experiments," he said.

"It's suspiciously sparkly," Mr Ben pointed out.

Sherlock chuckled, and gestured to the fridge. "The last earthly remains of one Laura Adler," he said, a note of pride in his voice. "I've managed to find that her brain is shaped differently from that of an average human, and that all her body cells are in the shape of cute animals."

"Where the _hell _did you get her?" demanded Mr Ben.

Sherlock tapped the side of his nose. "The other day, a pair of PPC Agents asked if they could send us a Sue they'd recently caught and charged with mangling mine and John's characters, so…"

Mr Ben rolled his eyes. "So you took your frustrations out on the Sue. Wonderful."

"You shouldn't be complaining. At least we're not obliged to resurrect Sues. Speaking of which, how is Baskerville coming along with that?"

Mr Ben grimaced. "Don't bloody remind me. The two Arthurs visiting from that other OFU offered their assistance, but apparently there's some sort of plant they use at their school to help the resurrection process and we can't grow it here because of the discrepancy between our continuums. That is to say, they used a magic potion of sorts, and we don't have that ability here."

"I thought Sir Arthur Conan Doyle believed in faeries," John remarked.

"The original stories are pure science, logic, and reason," Mr Ben pointed out.

Sherlock shrugged. "Perhaps if we had Stapleton find some regenerating genes from a sea star –"

"Surely someone from the Whoniverse could help," John added.

"I'll ask," Mr Ben sighed. "I mean, it's already taking quite the effort to get Bleeprin to work around here. I blame you, Sherlock."

"What for?" Sherlock demanded, popping a pill of said wonder drug. John glared at him.

"You and your logic." Mr Ben stood up. "Ruining all the fun for the rest of us. You should be detained."

John snorted. "Leaving so soon?" he asked.

Mr Ben headed for the door. "What else is there to do? Miss Dawson isn't picking up. Call me if she does."

"I prefer to text," Sherlock pointed out.

"I wasn't talking to you. You'd hoard all the evidence." Mr Ben fetched his hat from the nearby rack and donned it. "Evening!"

Of course, no sooner had the front door slammed closed did Sherlock's mobile ring. The consulting detective picked up.

"Sherlock Holmes," he snapped.

There was a gasping noise on the other end. Sherlock frowned, and set the mobile to speakerphone for John to listen as well.

The gasping continued for a bit, before quieting. Finally, a young woman's voice sounded out:

"Help… me…"

"Who are you?" Sherlock demanded. "Where are you?"

"Ava…" breathed the woman on the other end. "Ava Dawson…"

Sherlock looked at John, an eyebrow raised.

"Ah, thank you for contacting us at last, Miss Dawson. Can you tell me, then, who –"

"Help… me…"

"Yes, we will get you help as soon as you tell us –"

"Danger… can't… can't say… he'll kill –"

Sherlock leaned in, eyes fevered and eager. John sighed, resting his chin on his hands.

"Who's going to kill you, Miss Dawson? Can you tell us that much?"

"Juh… Juh…" stammered Ava Dawson. "Juh-Juh-Jekyll… and H-H-Hyde."

And with that, the line went dead. Sherlock stared at the mobile for a moment longer, before looking up at John.

"That's how he did it," he breathed. "That's the final piece! This is brilliant!"

"The final piece?" echoed John, looking abysmally lost. Sherlock was already one breath away from bouncing off the walls, though, and didn't hear him.

"We'll only have to lure him out; it shouldn't be too difficult. Plenty of students for bait, after all… and the seminar this weekend! I'll definitely find a volunteer by then."

"What?" John demanded. "Slow down for a sec, Sherlock. You never told me who the hell you're trying to capture."

"Isn't it obvious? The killer of those two students and the other people. Didn't you see the messages? Didn't you see the two distinctive methods of killing? It wasn't two men committing the crime as Lestrade thought; it was one. Someone with a split personality, like in the _Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde_."

"All right, and who could that person be?"

Sherlock rolled his eyes. "That's even more obvious! Think, John, who could be connected to Jekyll and Hyde as well as Sherlock Holmes?"

John sat bolt upright. "You don't mean_ him_, right? But he's one of the headmasters!"

Sherlock groaned. "Who escaped from Pentonville within the first week of the semester?"

John's mouth fell open. "But that's a _monster_. How – oh. That's why he was hinting at evil twins and doppelgangers. That's why you said Jekyll and Hyde. I see."

"Took you long enough," Sherlock replied, only the barest of smiles ghosting about his face.

* * *

Rose hated having to give up her Saturday morning for this seminar on Mary Sues. She wanted to curl up in bed and sleep until the afternoon. But unfortunately such luxuries could not be afforded this morning, because failure to show up at the seminar would result in a pack of mini-Hounds dragging you through the streets of London as their new chew toy. It wasn't a cheery prospect.

And Sherlock looking one step away from eviscerating all of them wasn't helping much, when Rose finally padded into the lecture theatre at Bart's. There was a giant projector screen set up, and Moriarty was sitting on the desk watching all of them with his creepy dark eyes.

John Watson strode in moments later, glaring nastily at Moriarty as he took a seat behind the desk. Sherlock clicked a button to open the presentation; the title slide read 'THE MODERN MARY SUE'.

"Morning, morning!" chirped Moriarty, hopping off the desk and grinning at them all. "I'm Jim Moriarty, this is Sherlock Holmes, and behind me is John Watson, and we're here to talk to you about Mary Sues!"

God, Moriarty was far too cheerful for six in the morning. No wonder he was crazy evil; in Rose's book anyone so chipper at this hour of the day seriously needed help.

Even John seemed to agree. "Stop, Moriarty, you're giving me a headache," he grumbled.

"Your loss!" Moriarty beamed sunnily at John. "Now, to begin. What is the definition of a Mary Sue?"

Several hands went up. "A perfect person!" shouted Dasha Lynch. "She just can't do no wrong and she gets together with the hottest character!"

"The pet character of the author," declared Kenzie Chase. "She helps the author live out a dream life or something."

"She has to be really annoying to everyone except the author or something," added Remy Harper Mansfield.

"All right, all right," Sherlock muttered, changing the slide. "Copy down this definition. A Mary Sue, according to the Protectors of the Plot Continuum, is 'a fictional character that achieves its goals in the story with minimal effort', usually with a disproportionate contrast to the effort taken by the canonicals in a similar endeavour. In order to accomplish such a feat, the typical Mary Sue will have far more positive traits than flaws."

"Don't forget that Gary Stu exists," added John. Rose rolled her eyes.

Sherlock continued. "The Mary Sue's primary traits are defined by her function within the plot, rather than her form. This is especially true in light of the backlash against Mary Sues amongst fandoms in general. In order to discover the modern Mary Sue, one must look at her role within the story. First off, the Mary Sue does not react logically to her situation."

"Take the increasingly-popular 'girl living at 221C Baker Street'. If she's written as a Sue she expresses no concerns over sharing a flat with a lunatic who puts body parts in the fridge, blows things up in experiments, and shoots the walls at two thirty in the morning, often accompanied by terrible violin music," added John.

"Anyone sane would object to sharing space with a high-functioning sociopath," agreed Sherlock.

"That makes me destined for the loony bin, huh?" John asked, snickering. Sherlock rolled his eyes.

"The next primary trait is that other characters in the story do not react to the Mary Sue as they would with a normal character – or as you know it, they become out of character." Sherlock grimaced. "The cast is split into two camps – those who like Mary Sue and those who don't, and rest assured that if you don't like Mary Sue, you will be assimilated."

The students snickered. Sherlock Holmes, the closet Trekkie. Who knew.

"That'll either come with your conversion, or your death. Pick your poison," agreed Moriarty. "The final trait of the Mary Sue is her inherent specialness. She's special because she was born, because she bloody exists."

"For example, she can be an artist with nothing significant to contribute to the work, and somehow I will like her because I suddenly value 'artistic insight' outside cases," deadpanned Sherlock, and Rose cringed (how on earth did he know about Ally?). "Because of her inherent specialness, no one will comment when she completely steals the spotlight from John. Suddenly it's not he who's chiselling down my defences; it's her."

Rose wanted to hide under her table. Ally sounded even worse than Rosie Watson-Holmes.

"These three traits are universal to Mary Sues," John continued, changing the slide. "They are a result of her role within the story – or rather, the role of the story as it pertains to her. She does not serve a plot; the plot serves her instead."

"But there are the traditional warning signs as secondary traits," added Sherlock. "A Sue's secondary traits are often also used by much better characters. They are not, by themselves, able to make or break the 'Sue. But oftentimes they're associated with the Sue, and generally jaded readers will catch these things immediately. You should probably know what these traits are."

"Impossibly beautiful, usually over-described. Extremely powerful, usually much better than the rest of us characters at something or simply has talents without taking the effort to attain them –"

"I spent most of my childhood and adolescence perfecting the art of deduction, so therefore thou shalt not be better than me at it," Sherlock snapped. John rolled his eyes.

"A tragic past, usually used to make people sympathise with her. Related to the canon characters, in defiance of family trees or records. Falls in love and ends up with a canon character, sometimes in defiance of sexual orientation or pre-established romantic ties –"

"I should think my friendship with John counts as pre-established ties," added Sherlock. "Even if it's not romantic. It's still a big part of the story, and your OC shouldn't be cheapening it."

They covered, briefly, the history behind the Mary Sue. Rose tuned that out – she'd heard it all before. Paula Smith, "A Trekkie's Tale", Lieutenant Mary Sue? Old news. There were even some pointers about the Mary Sues slain in the early days of the PPC, about how extremely ludicrous some of them were, and how they led to the eventual backlash against Sues from other fanwriters.

"Nowadays the term 'Mary Sue' has lost most of its meaning, since people have misused it to slander any female character that they don't like. There are plenty of people who think that the term is misogynist, and believe that fear for being called a Suethor has led to a decrease of prominent female characters in literature." Sherlock was reading off the slide, his expression bored.

"Of course, people are entitled to their own opinions," John added, as Sherlock made a derisive noise at that. "But we here at MBSFA go by the PPC definition of Mary Sue. A Mary Sue, to us, is fictional and anti-feminist, and stinkweed by any other name would still smell bad."

"That's to say, without the term 'Mary Sue' there would still be another term used to describe a poorly-written Original Character, and it would have the same controversy and baggage around it," agreed Moriarty, yawning widely.

"How is Mary Sue anti-feminist, though?" asked Ellie Yelsnit. "I mean, she _is_ supposed to be a power fantasy, and it's nice for girls to dream so ambitiously –"

"Gary Stu is more often a power fantasy. Mary Sue is usually a romance fantasy. Both character types portray their gender negatively. Both are direct results of the media's obsession with beauty as defined by stick-thin, big-breasted females and ridiculously ripped males." Sherlock changed the slide. "Mary Sue is anti-feminist in that her entire existence is usually centred on the heterosexual happily ever after, that her appearance is nothing like that of a real woman's, and that her treatment of already-existing female characters is usually extremely bigoted and prejudiced."

"Yeah, take that artist Sue we discussed," John added. "She made Molly disappear around Christmastime in Scandal and spent most of that arc being petty about Sherlock's affections, griping about how slutty Irene Adler is and generally being a pain in the arse."

Some Molly and Irene fans hissed. Jinx looked incoherent with rage. Rose slunk down further in her seat and hoped that Jinx wouldn't notice her.

"What about that other one we read about? The lingerie designer from Texas?" Moriarty was looking slightly green as he asked that. "She treated Sergeant Donovan pretty badly."

"Even I have to say that was taking it a bit too far," agreed Sherlock. "At least she apologised later. It really depends on which version of her you're talking about, though. The version that has your child is infinitely worse and never quite apologised for it."

Moriarty snorted. "Don't remind me."

It was extremely surreal for Rose (and probably the others) to see Sherlock and Moriarty bandying about like friends, and John only looking mildly uncomfortable about it. Perhaps they were acting, perhaps there was something more to their interactions – but whatever it was, at the moment it seemed as if Moriarty had never strapped a bunch of bombs onto John and tried to make Sherlock jump off the roof of St Bart's.

"So, then, what makes the modern Mary Sue?" Sherlock now looked much more invested in the lecture. He had that manic glint in his eyes, after all, a glint that Rose was slowly starting to recognise (and dread). "The modern Mary Sue is much more insidious, usually because of the backlash that forced Original Character writers to make their female protagonists less special. She's usually touted as ordinary yet extraordinary in some way, or some strangely interesting puzzle for me to solve even though her intentions are clear by her very presence."

"Then again, a lot of people point out that _I'm_ ordinary yet extraordinary and a strangely interesting puzzle for Sherlock," added John with an eyeroll. "So no points for originality there."

"A shaky grasp on the English language is no longer an indicator of a Mary Sue," drawled Moriarty as he changed the slide. "Mary Sues can be found in grammatically-perfect works as well as chatspeak-filled scribblings."

"Yes. Believe it or not, good prose does not excuse shitty characterisation," agreed Sherlock drily. "The more you know, after all."

"The best way to spot the modern Mary Sue, then, is to look at how other characters react to her, and to take a step back and look at the plot. Is the plot all about her? Possibly a Mary Sue. Is the plot aimed to show how she finds a home in Sherlock's heart or something as stupid as that? Probably a Mary Sue. Is the plot focused specifically on her whims and needs and doesn't give the time of day to an actual conflict? Definitely a Mary Sue." John changed the slide. "If she is integral to the plot but doesn't let all of the attention focus on her and her problems, then she is less likely to be a Mary Sue."

"A lot of Sue stories in our fandom tend to fill most of what little plot there is by rehashing all the cases," Sherlock added. "Which is boring, obviously. I detest repetition."

"So she's basically this ordinary girl who actually isn't very ordinary, and she usually ends up moving into 221C Baker Street despite all the damp and mould, and reacts with glee instead of fear upon finding out she lives with a madman upstairs. She then meets said madman, who is suddenly extremely polite to her and somehow even finds time to compliment her on her earrings or commiserate with her over her oh-so-tragic past. She then finds herself tagging along on cases, falling in Twoo Wuv with the madman, and realising with delight that Disney doesn't lie after all because the madman has been healed of his cold-heartedness through his Twoo Wuv for her." Moriarty snickered. "Don't you just _love_ fairytales like these? Don't you just want to _burn_ the princess?"

Rose shuddered. Moriarty had nearly made eye contact with her at the word 'burn'. Indeed, all of that had scared the shit out of her. She wanted nothing more than to crawl back to the dorms and hide under her bed.

Alan Cablen raised his hand. "That's stupid. All of this is stupid. Who the hell would write something as stupid as that?"

Sherlock raised an eyebrow at him. "I'm sure you've had dreams of beating up everyone you hate," he remarked drily. "It's essentially the same thing, in writing form. A Mary Sue or Gary Stu is often an idealised version of the author, used for vicarious living. They will have all the talents and looks the author wishes he or she had, and everything will go right for them."

"All of which are obviously relics of an entire childhood constructed around the idea that 'dreams do come true if you wish on stars and wait patiently'," added John. "And Mary Sues especially are reactions to negative body image."

"Yes, somehow it got into your silly little heads that we wouldn't like you as you are," snorted Sherlock. "I can easily say a perfected version of you is infinitely more dull than the real you. Your quirks and flaws are more important than only showing your best side."

"And that's as inspirational as he gets," concluded John with an eyeroll, changing the slide once more.

* * *

"This is going to be so _hard_! I can't do it! I can't, I can't, I can't –"

"Calm down," suggested Melissa.

The Mary Sue seminar had concluded in the early afternoon with Sherlock, John, and Moriarty assigning them all a story in which an original character is present but does not intrude onto the plot and does not end up in a relationship with any major canon character. Rose was now slumped in Speedy's café with Melissa and Elijah, drowning her sorrows in a giant mug of coffee.

"How am I going to write it? I _want _to see a girl help Sherlock with his cases and fall in love with him and –"

"Maybe you should focus more on the Johnlock," Elijah pointed out. "If you have a girl who sees more of Johnlock than of her with Sherlock or John, it'll more or less prevent her from intruding on that."

"That doesn't –"

"She could be John's sassy gay friend who tells him that he _is_ in love with Sherlock," Melissa said, snickering.

Rose snorted. "Yeah, because that'll go down well with him," she remarked cynically.

"Exactly. There could be a lot of confusion over who likes who because everyone else thinks she and John are dating, but in the end she's only John's friend and he's Sherlock's best friend with a deeper connection."

Rose sighed, and got up to get more coffee. On her way past the counter, though, she noticed Steven Marcus working the register and grinned at him. He smiled and nodded back at her before taking Cale Serfe's order.

Rose handed over her mug of coffee; Steven took it and set it aside so he can get Cale some tea. It didn't take too long; within moments Steven was handing her mug back and for some reason she was blushing at him.

"So… um. You work dinner hour, too?"

"Yeah, for weekends," he said, smiling sheepishly at her. "Although, you know, I don't have work next Saturday night."

Rose frowned. What was he trying to imply? She thought back to Melissa teasing her about Steven liking her. Could he be serious?

"Um. That's nice," she said after a moment, shifting from one foot to the next. "Thanks for the coffee."

He laughed. "I was wondering if you'd like to have dinner with me at Angelo's next Saturday," he said bluntly, and Rose nearly dropped her coffee.

"Oh."

So he was serious. _Shit_.

"Um. Right."

What on earth was she going to do? She had to work on her project that night with Elijah! Rose was cringing. Fuck her life.

"Well?" Steven raised an eyebrow at her, smiling hopefully. He looked, for all intents and purposes, like some overgrown puppy begging for a treat. Rose groaned internally.

"Sure," she said after a moment. "Yeah. I'll just, um…" she gestured over to her friends. "Tell my project partner that… I can't make it Saturday night or something. Yeah."

"You do that." Steven grinned. "I'll see you around, Rose Ellis."

And it was only when Rose returned to her seat that she realised_ she_ had never told him her name.


	8. Rats, Weddings, and Bows, Oh My!

**Part VIII**

"WHAT DOES IT MEAN? OH MY GODTISS, WHAT DOES IT _MEAN_?"

"Your guess is only as good as the Staff's, and even _Sherlock_ isn't sure what it means," Dasha Lynch reasoned. Next to her, Cale Serfe muttered something about trolltastic headmasters.

Early in the morning, the Headmasters of MBSFA had released a note with only three words. The entire school had leapt onto the new information like kids on a piñata. Rose couldn't even order her breakfast without hearing people discussing those words nearby.

Rat. Wedding. Bow. The mind reeled.

"They've given us a puzzle; now they'll watch us dance," snorted Ellie Yelsnit. Rose and Melissa walked past her on their way to their usual table for breakfast. It was a lazy Sunday morning (in Rose's mind, anyway) at Speedy's, and Melissa was hoping to meet Aviva Von Lilite afterwards to discuss their project.

"You guys, it totally means something crossover-y," declared Dasha.

"What do you mean by that?" demanded Remy Harper Mansfield.

"I mean that 'Rat' obviously means Peter Pettigrew, 'Wedding' means Amy and Rory's wedding, and 'Bow' means the society of kick-ass fictional archers," retorted Dasha.

"I was thinking more along the lines of John yelling 'YOU RAT!' at Sherlock for faking his death," giggled Mischa Byrnes, "and then they get married, and then Sherlock bows to John so John can shove his –"

"LA-LA-LA-LA I CAN'T HEAR YOU!" shouted nearly half of the café.

"I'm fairly certain the wedding means that Mary Morstan gets involved," mused Patrick Scott Harper. That was greeted by a chorus of 'ewww Mary Morstan!' from some Johnlock shippers (and Jinx, ever the Adlerlock fangirl).

Renee Robins rolled her eyes. "I doubt it. Since when have Moffat and Gatiss ever chosen the easy answer?"

"What if it's Moriarty's rat, like Moran, and John's wedding, and Sherlock's bow?" added Mary, blue eyes wide. A shiver passed through the students collectively.

"Did they clarify what sort of bow?" breathed Sabian.

"They meant the sort taken on a stage."

That got the rest started once more.

"NO! IT CAN'T BE THE LAST BOW! IT'S ONLY THE THIRD SERIES AND THEY'RE TOO YOUNG TO RETIRE TO SUSSEX!" sobbed Dasha.

"Maybe it's a different case that needs a bow, like how there are some cases with weddings that don't require Mary Morstan, you know? Like the Noble Bachelor and stuff. Maybe it's a case set at a theatre, with an opera ghost."

"Yeah, like they're gonna touch Phantom after what Andrew Lloyd Webber did to it in the sequel," snorted Cale.

There was a collective shudder from every student who was also secretly (or covertly, whatever floats your oyster) in the Phandom. Rose shuddered, and then looked around in an attempt to find Steven Marcus. He was nowhere to be seen; she wasn't sure why she felt so disappointed about that.

"You're looking for_ him_, aren't you," Melissa sighed.

"Nope," Rose replied.

"Lies."

Rose snorted, rolling her eyes. "What gave you that impression?"

"You're looking at the till."

"Damn it, Sherlock," Rose replied with a straight face, now looking towards the kitchen.

"Why on earth did you even agree to that again?" Melissa demanded, rolling her eyes. "You know you have to work on your project with Elijah. Where are you in terms of that?"

"We're doing this weird thing where it's kinda Study in Pink but not really and John's a hit-man and Sherlock's a consulting criminal. It's going to be awesome. What about yours?"

"I asked where you were with the project."

"I started it."

"No shit, Sherlock." Melissa rolled her eyes. A waitress came over and set down a cup of coffee and a breakfast wrap. "What about the seminar homework?"

"Oh that I actually managed to finish." Rose grinned, and dove into her backpack to retrieve a set of papers. "Meet Adriana Valentine; she's platonically bound to Sh –"

"You tried," Melissa said immediately, rolling her eyes. "Try again."

"What? No! This is just Sherlock remembering their friendship before their huge fight and the severing of their bond –"

"That sounds melodramatic." Melissa took the papers and glanced it over. "Only three pages?"

"There wasn't much to say."

Melissa frowned, and started reading the fic more properly:

_I remembered Adriana before the fight, before everything went to hell wrapped in a neat little snowball. I remembered breaking her heart, seeing the hopelessness on her face, and I remembered feeling in that moment that it'd be so much better to divorce myself from my feelings – _

"So you mean to say this is a 'before PINK even happened' story?" she asked.

Rose looked up from her own breakfast, which had been delivered in that time. "Yeah?"

"That's pretty delicate a scenario. That's Sherlock before his character development even happens, before John enters his life and changes him."

"I thought it'd explain why he's so mean towards women like Sally."

"Okay, but not everything has to involve a past love interest, you know. Sherlock's distrust of women could stem from a domineering mother or teacher or anyone, really. Not necessarily a broken heart."

"But if it was a love interest –"

"If." Melissa grinned. "Have you seen _Elementary_ yet?"

Rose wrinkled her nose. "Ew, _Elementary_!"

"Don't diss _Elementary_. It is fabulous and Lucy Liu is flawless." Melissa's grin grew wider. "Holmes in _Elementary_ is distrustful of women because of a past love interest. So it can be done. But with our Sherlock… I think there's a reason why Irene calls him 'the Virgin', you know –"

"Sherlock can't possibly be a virgin!"

"Sure. He could have tossed aside his v-card on a drug trip, or maybe during an unbearable moment in university when he realised his body had needs that needed tending. I mean, just because he's asexual doesn't mean he can't have sex –"

"We are not having this conversation." Rose resisted the urge to faceplant her eggs. "It's too early in the week. Try Friday."

"Irene already mentioned it."

Rose groaned, remembering that class. In a supremely confusing lecture involving rainbow diagrams, Irene had taken everyone along the spectrum of sexual orientations and gender identities. Rose still wasn't sure what constituted demisexuality, but she was pretty sure Sherlock was it.

After all, she just wanted a back door for John, pun totally intended.

Across from her, Melissa was serenely eating her breakfast wrap. "Are you ready for Moriarty's test on Monday?" she asked after a moment.

"He has a test?" Rose echoed.

* * *

"He had a test, and the test was evil."

Monday evening found Rose faceplanting the table at the Chinese restaurant on Baker Street, only centimetres away from her Kung Pao Chicken. Across the table, Eljah gingerly tapped her shoulder with the head of his chopsticks.

"Don't worry; it's not as if you care about your grades, right?" he asked with a strained smile. Rose looked up at him quizzically.

"I do care about my…" she trailed off, frowning. "Oh."

"When were you going to tell me that you're ditching me on Saturday for that Steven Marcus bloke?"

Rose flushed. "Never?" she suggested.

"So you'd have stood me up for our meeting, is that so?"

"I… suppose… I mean, how far are you with it?"

Elijah scowled. "I'm done."

Rose blinked. "Done?"

"With the first draft. We're going to edit it, add tweaks and stuff. That was the plan for Saturday, at least. The draft's due Wednesday, and edits the Wednesday after that. You didn't know?"

"Lost track…" Rose sighed. "I'm sorry, Elijah."

The fanboy rolled his eyes. "Just take a look, all right?" he grumbled, handing Rose the papers. Rose sighed, putting them into her own backpack.

"Fine." She looked at him, stabbing her chopsticks into her chicken because she couldn't be buggered to use it properly. "I'm really sorry, though."

"It's fine. Get it edited as soon as possible."

"I hate editing."

"And that's why your fics suck."

Rose flushed puce. "Hey! My fics do not –"

"Why else are you here?"

"Why are you here, then?" Rose glared at him. "It seems as if everyone at this school is a better writer than me, and everyone at this school judges me because I'm simultaneously a Johnlock and Sherlock/OC fangirl and –"

"Yeah, we all know you can't decide whether to have your OTP as your parents or to get with Sherlock Holmes."

"I don't need your fucking judgement, you asshole!" Rose felt the sting of tears as she glared at him. "It's not like I'm not painfully aware by now just how much work I have ahead of me! I'm well aware of that!"

"So why aren't you working on it?"

"Do I look like I know where the_ fuck_ to begin?!"

Elijah let loose a long, low exhalation that grated against Rose's nerves; she stood up, fists clenched, not caring about the other students sending them odd looks.

"I'm done with this place. I don't need your fucking judgement," she snapped, before storming out of the restaurant without even paying her part of the bill.

Rose wasn't even sure where she was going once she was out of the restaurant; all she needed to do at the moment was walk. Away, away – far away from this school and its stupid judgemental Staff and students and away from her homework and problems – she'd walk miles, if she could. Swim to France, perhaps.

Although it was getting a bit chilly; Rose secretly hoped she didn't actually have to jump into the English Channel to escape.

The faint green glow of the mini-Hounds could be seen throughout the darkened streets, providing an eerie bit of light along with the streetlamps. Golden light bathed her steps as she headed along the pavement towards some unknown destination. The road went ever on and on, after all.

Despite herself, despite her determination to sob up a pretty storm and angst about her life, Rose couldn't help but hum the opening credits of Sherlock. It just felt right, the tune. It was comforting, in a way – this canon was a wonderful one that had roots stretching way back, full of illustrious fandom members and creative minds. And she had wanted so desperately to contribute to that, didn't she? She wanted to be like the author of "Alone on the Water", like the author of "The Makings of a Good Man", like the author of "The Magic of Deduction". She wanted to weave her own spell over the readers and leave them happy yet wanting more…

But still, she stood at the other end. And it wasn't a good end.

"Your internal monologue could be heard ten streets away," someone said, and Rose spun around in alarm to see Cale Serfe, drenched in… was that Glitter? She frowned.

"What are you doing here?" she asked, eyes narrowed. Cale shrugged, dusting Glitter off her clothing. Rose noticed a flashpatch on her shoulder bearing the letter I in red. She raised an eyebrow.

"What's that?" she asked, pointing to the flashpatch.

"Oh, you didn't know?" Cale beamed. "I'm an intern at the Protectors of the Plot Continuum!"

Rose's eyes widened; she took a step away. That explained the Glitter, all right. Cale shot her a quizzical look.

"I don't bite, you know. Much, at least. I mean, not unless you're doing something really douchefuckery, which I hope you're not. Why're you here? The school's in the other direction."

"Yeah, I know. I'm trying to get away."

"Oh, like that's going to work," scoffed Cale. "I'm only here because the Disentanglers that dropped me off are terrible with their coordinates. Once you pass the last canon location in this direction, you'll get nothing but Generic Surface. And that's not very fun to walk through."

"Why? Why Generic Surface?"

Cale rolled her eyes. "Walk with me and I'll tell you."

"Spoilsport."

Cale snickered and started to walk away. "Whatever floats your oyster. Have fun in the dark, though; I bet the thing that's killing students now is lurking out there."

That did it. Rose was not going to wander into a part of town that could conceivably house a murderer. She spun on her heel and chased after the other girl, who was satisfactorily consulting a small black notebook.

"Now you'll have to tell me," Rose declared, staring at Cale. She could barely decipher the handwriting in the notebook; it seemed to say something along the lines of 'distorting Middle-earth geography', 'planting random Hobbits into Lake-Town prior to Bilbo's adventure', 'using Sherlock Holmes and John Watson to possess Smaug and Bilbo and force them to have biologically improbable sex', and 'dubious lube'.

She really didn't want to know.

"You know this school is built in a way that encompasses mostly canon locations, right?" Cale asked carelessly, turning a page and continuing to look through the comments in the notebook.

"Yeah…"

"All the bits that canon shows are therefore shown on campus. That's fine – that's basically all the big and important parts of London anyway. But there are other places in London not shown, so those places are still waiting to be depicted. Hence their continued existence as Generic Surface. It's pretty cool; I only learnt about Generic Surface at the PPC."

"Really." Rose raised an eyebrow. "I… they killed one of my fics once."

"Ally Gilbertson, right?"

"…How did you…"

"Sherlock was bitching about her at the seminar, and Agent Christianne had an especial grudge against her. Something about upstaging John Watson."

"That was before I got into Johnlock," Rose muttered defensively, staring at the ground.

"I guess you've probably realised by now that there are a lot of people who write Johnlock for vicarious living, too?" Cale asked, grinning. "I mean, Jinx does it for Adlerlock; pretty obvious because her Irene is exactly like her. But there are plenty of people who do it for Johnlock – pulling out bits of themselves to put into John or Sherlock, and watching the fireworks. Sometimes it works, you know. Other times it doesn't. But then that's writing, I guess."

"There's a bit of me in everything I write," agreed Rose. "But…"

"But there's this line between writing with a bit of you in everything, and writing self-insert Mary Sues." Cale rolled her eyes. "Christianne said that good writers tell their own stories through their characters – that's why Mycroft made us look at the life of Conan Doyle, after all. I mean if ACD didn't have Dr Bell for a teacher, we wouldn't have Sherlock Holmes, so…"

"I fell asleep during that lecture," admitted Rose.

"Then you must've missed the part where Conan Doyle got tricked by little girls into believing the existence of faeries."

Rose snorted. "Well that's stupid."

"They even turned it into a film. I forgot the title, but yeah." Cale giggled. "Though seriously, why the hell were you even trying to leave?"

"People being judgemental about me because of what I write."

"That's also stupid."

Rose's eyes narrowed. Cale snorted.

"Look, Agent Christianne said –"

"Is Agent Christianne like your guru for inspirational life quotes or…?"

"We're just good friends. She's like totally with her partner Eledhwen, but they both deny it so it's like John and Sherlock. They need to kiss already." Cale rolled her eyes. "Anyway, Chrissy told me on our first mission that there are lots of people at the PPC who had once written badfics themselves. So just because we all judge you now shouldn't stop you from getting better at writing. But that's only if you actually figure out why we're judging you and stuff."

"Why, then?"

"Because you write Mary Sues and you're being lazy about changing things around so that you don't write Mary Sues?" Cale shrugged. "Melissa told me yesterday about the fic you wrote after the seminar. She said it was actually pretty good prose-wise but the characters were still kinda… eh. Like, you weren't really writing from Sherlock's perspective. You were imposing your perspective on Sherlock's… does that even make any sense?"

Rose raised an eyebrow. "But you said I should put a bit of myself into…"

"Put the bit of yourself that reminds you of Sherlock. I mean, it's taking me a shitload of effort to talk civilly to you, not because I don't like you – you're kinda nice, you know – but because I hate social interaction. In that way I kinda relate to Sherlock, so if I want to write from his perspective I tap into that. It's the same for John, the same for Moriarty."

"What part of you reminds you of Moriarty?"

"The part that wants to see the world burn?"

Rose snorted. "Point," she conceded. "Thanks for the advice."

"How was Moriarty's test? I have to retake it tomorrow after Mycroft's class; I was on a mission." Cale gestured to her notebook. "A Bad Slash and Implausible Crossover co-op trying to separate a really squicky bit of Dragon/Hobbit porn. Fun stuff."

"Eew."

"It was Johnlock. And Bilbo/Smaug, but yeah."

Rose wrinkled her nose. "Moriarty's test was terrible. All the answers appeared to be C, but that couldn't possibly be right, so I had to change things around –"

"Aha! I win!" Cale leapt up, punching the air. "Melissa and Wymarc owe me big-time!"

"What?" echoed Rose.

"We had a bet on the evilness of Moriarty's test and the various forms of evil it could take, ranging from document-based question to short answer on terms to multiple-choice where all the answers are C." Cale spun around, giggling like a loon. "They owe me, they so totally owe me; I'll be able to buy myself the Sherlock manga now!"

"We have a manga?"

Cale snorted. "You didn't know? It's a retelling of PINK done in manga form and everyone looks so fucking kawaii!"

"That explains why Mischa and Leevee were giggling about 'Sherlock-sempai' in Deductions for Dummies today! Sherlock assigned them detention." Rose grinned. By now, they were emerging onto Baker Street once more, the glow of streetlamps and building lights all around them. At 221B, Sherlock was playing "Lied Ohne Worte No. 7" by Felix Mendelssohn; the strains of the violin melody (accompanied by piano music a floor below?) floated out to the two girls, enchanting in its very essence. Rose couldn't help but grin even wider at the sound.

Elijah was waiting for her outside the dormitories, expression sheepish. Rose stopped right before him, not saying anything for a moment. She could hear Cale slipping away, coughing with silent laughter, and she ignored it in favour of hugging her friend in his stripey jumper, and ruffling his tousled brown hair.

"Sorry," Elijah said after a moment, breaking the embrace. "I didn't mean to hurt your feelings… well… at the time I… I was just really mad because you were slacking on the project in favour of a date and I didn't know you were… yeah." He finished lamely, shrugging. "So sorry about… yeah."

"It's fine," admitted Rose, shrugging. "I get where you're coming from."

"You're still going on the date on Saturday, right?" Elijah looked… was that resigned? Rose bit her lip.

"Yeah, I guess I am. I think… I could ask him about the murders and stuff, perhaps? Maybe he knows stuff; he works right below Sherlock and John after all. Surely he's heard something."

"Yeah, you can do that." Elijah smiled. "Just make sure you have edits and stuff for our project. And really, try thinking about writing about John's sassy straight friend who works at a sushi bar and who helps him realise he loves Sherlock or something. It'll be more entertaining than what you've got."

Rose raised an eyebrow. "How the hell did you hear –?"

"Melissa."

"Does Melissa like know everything or something? She's like the Mycroft Holmes of the school, Jesus Christ."

Elijah cackled. "An astute observation. Night, Rose!"

"Night." Rose smiled, and walked past him into the dorms.

* * *

Instead of Canon 101 on Tuesday, Mycroft introduced the students to the joys of elevensies tea. Or rather, he inflicted on them an entire lecture on British culture, called "British for Dummies". Leevee kept on complaining about how she had "already taken British for Dummies at HFA; please make it stop I can't hold up this teacup anymore!" all throughout the class.

"The elements of British culture found in _Harry Potter _are of a slightly different nature than the British culture in BBC _Sherlock_, silly girl," Mycroft sniffed as he sipped from his teacup. Everyone was seated at their desks with teacups and saucers; Rose's hand was trembling from her 'delicate grip' on the fine bone handle of the cup. Oh, what wouldn't she give for a proper mug of coffee…

"How so?" asked Leevee, frowning. "I mean, aside from one of them being in Scotland…"

"Magic," Mycroft replied simply. "Now everyone, do you remember the proper way to serve tea – is it with creamer or with milk?"

"Milk," chorused the class.

"Unless you're weird and you like lemon and honey," added Sabian.

"Mummy does that." Mycroft set down his cup and grabbed his pointer, pointing back to the whiteboard. "Do we remember the types of teas that go with each character?" He pointed to 'loose-leaf'.

"You probably would," Ruth Tamara said.

Mycroft pointed to 'tea bags'.

"John, Lestrade, Molly, Anderson, Donovan, Mrs Hudson. Sherlock, too, because he lives at Baker Street," answered Anita Granger.

"Actually, pretty much anyone could drink tea with tea bags; it really depends on what type," added Mary.

"Excellent point. We take whatever tea is available to us. I know Baker Street has a sizeable collection of loose-leaf and bagged teas, the loose-leaf only used when visitors like myself or Moriarty are present." Mycroft beamed. He then pointed to 'Fortnum and Mason'.

"Oh, that is _so_ your tea," mumbled Remy Harper Mansfield.

Mycroft pointed to 'Twinings'.

"John and Sherlock, I suppose," Elijah answered.

Mycroft pointed to 'Tetley's'.

"Probably Lestrade or Donovan," said Kenzie Chase.

"Yes, I'd go with 'probably' as well, because while you don't usually see the Yard being stocked with good tea – their coffee, at any rate, is certainly second-class – that doesn't mean all officers regularly buy bog-standard tea brands like Tetley's, Typhoo, PG Tips, and so forth. Twinings is slightly more upscale, and then you have the fancy brands like Fortnum and Mason and Taylors of Harrogate. British culture is very stratified; people judge you based on the tea you drink."

"And the biscuits you eat," grumbled Clare Travers around a party ring. Mycroft sent her a very judgemental look before returning to his lecture.

"Miss Travers has a point. I will now point to a type of biscuit, and you will tell me the characters you could conceivably see eating them." He pointed to 'Jammie Dodgers'.

"John," said the class immediately.

"As well as many other characters who aren't you," added Ruth Tamara.

Mycroft pointed to 'chocolate digestive'.

"Also John," agreed Sabian. "Although I see him as the bloke who just eats anything on sale."

"An excellent point." Mycroft's lip curled slightly. He then pointed to 'gourmet biscuits from French pâtisseries'.

"Oh, that's definitely you," whispered Matt Chorell.

Mycroft nodded, and set down his pointer. "As you can tell, the types of biscuits and tea you serve to guests can be cause for controversy in Britain, so most people put their best foot forward when having people over for tea. You simply do not give party rings to upper-class visitors, nor do you step into upscale SoHo pâtisseries like Maison Bertaux and order PG Tips. That isn't how things are done." He smirked at all of them; Rose felt very self-conscious sitting there drinking Twinings Earl Grey at eleven in the morning. To assuage her nerves she popped another Jammie Dodger into her mouth. Next to her, Elijah rolled his eyes and sipped his tea.

"Any questions on tea habits in Britain?" Mycroft asked, raising an eyebrow. The students shook their heads. "Good. We've an hour left, so I will go into the history of the English Breakfast…"

* * *

Sherlock frowned over the microscope in the lab at Bart's. Next to him, Molly Hooper was recording some results.

"Positive?" he asked.

Molly shook her head. "No regeneration," she sighed.

Sherlock's knuckles shone white on the microscope as he adjusted it again. "What is it, then? Come on… think!"

"I'm trying!" squeaked Molly, hiding behind her clipboard. "I mean, we've tried regeneration genes from lizards and starfish and…"

"Stem cells," Sherlock said after a moment. "Embryonic stem cells, did we do those?"

"I don't think there's enough to revive the dead…?" Molly trailed off, frowning. "Why can't we wave a wand and make it all better?"

"Don't whine, Molly. We will figure out a way to revive the students," growled Sherlock. "If only to ensure that the killer doesn't turn his attentions to us instead…"

"You know who killed them, though. John said so." Molly coughed a bit, turning the page to her lesson plans for Anatomies and Autopsies on Friday. They were heading into the autopsy side of the course; Molly was going to lecture about figuring out time of death and manner of death on Friday, complete with grisly corpses. Sherlock had pointedly suggested they have a Mary Sue Dissection Day numerous times; Molly shot him down every time with the 'physiological differences' excuse.

After all, Sues tended not to use the restroom if humanly possible, and rarely ever enjoyed 'that time of the month'.

But back to the lab. "Yes, John does have a fondness for idle gossip," grumbled Sherlock. "A serious failure on his part, but... what does that have to do with anything?"

"Why haven't you told the Yard about it yet?"

"The Yard's figured it out by now. We're only waiting for him to come into the open. To make his big mistake."

"But wouldn't that mean a student will get harmed in the process?" Molly's eyes were wide; Sherlock looked at her and she blushed, looking away.

"I believe Mr Smith and Miss Abberline know perfectly well what they're getting themselves into," snapped the detective. "And if they don't, they did sign the contract, after all."

* * *

**Notes:** Opinions about tea and such are taken from **enigmaticpenguinofdeath**'s Tumblr essays on tea and biscuit habits in BBC Sherlock. They are not my opinion on tea brands whatsoever, although I do drink Twinings.


	9. John Watson, Dragon Trainer

**Notes: **Bilbo Baggins and Smaug belong to J.R.R. Tolkien. OFUM belongs to the esteemed Miss Cam, and this cameo by OFUM!Bilbo and Smaug is being written with her permission.

* * *

**Part IX**

It was, all in all, a very quiet Tuesday night at Angelo's. Lestrade had sent around a notification, which consisted of a giant flashy neon sign held up by a quivering Matt Chorell, who had apparently gotten on Mycroft's bad side after the tea party in Canon 101 (whispers had gone around about him claiming to steal Mycroft's role at the end of the Hounds of Baskerville), and was now being prodded along by a horde of mini-Hounds down the streets of London as he waved the notification for all to see.

It read, rather simply:

REPORT TO THE MORRIS LECTURE THEATRE TOMORROW MORNING FOR A CROSSOVER SEMINAR. STUDENTS WHO FAIL TO SHOW UP WILL BE SENT TO BASKERVILLE TO TEST OUT A NEW BATCH OF H.O.U.N.D.

"A crossover seminar!" breathed Anita Granger, shivering as she tucked into her spaghetti carbonara. "Do any of you guys know what it'll be about?"

"Everything?" suggested Marilyn Le with a shrug. "I mean, what hasn't been crossed over with Sherlock already?"

"They're catching up to Harry Potter, I think," agreed Detective Inspector Bridget Holmes, rolling her eyes. "That is, barring the amount of Potterlock there is already –"

"Have you even seen the amount of Wholock that happens? We all know Moffat would make it canon if he could," sniffed Mariah Black.

Kenzie Chase sighed. "I want to see Superwholock," she remarked.

"Superwholockvengers," butted in Claire Travers.

"Superwholockvengerstuck," retorted Cale Serfe.

Rose, who had been quietly reading over the project, leaned against the cushions of her booth and sighed. After a moment she set down the papers, took another bite of pasta, and resumed.

"Must be a new record for your attention," joked Melissa as she tried to look over Rose's shoulder. The blonde fangirl scowled and pressed the project to her chest.

"Well, it's certainly none of _your_ business," she sniffed.

"Superwholockvengerstucktalia !" exclaimed Leevee, with an extra shout of "Kesesesese!" for good measure. Cale scoffed rather loudly at that; in Rose's opinion, the girl could really be quite obnoxious. And her hoarding tendencies could put Smaug to shame.

Speaking of Smaug –

The doors to the restaurant slammed open at that moment, and Alan Cablen came running in, eyes wide, face pale.

"Aw, look at what the bats dragged in!" snickered Daniel Herman, who was feeling more like _Danielle_ at the moment.

"If you make a vampire pun on 'cat got your tongue', I will stake you," snapped Alan, pointing a finger at him. "I just ran into a dragon, and you sit here mocking my pain!"

"A dragon?!" demanded half the occupants of the restaurant.

"Yes, a red-gold dragon with a nasty disposition and Benedict Cumberbatch's voice!"

Dead. Silence.

And then as one, the fangirls screamed.

* * *

"News of your arrivals has reached the fanstudents," Sherlock Holmes remarked drily. Across from him, Bilbo Baggins raised an eyebrow as he sank deeper and deeper into John's squishy red armchair. Through the window, a very draconian eye peered into the room.

"I think I can hear them screaming 'Cumbersmaug' from here," Smaug the Dragon remarked with an angry huff of smoke. "I am a dragon! A fire-breathing monster! You can tell your Cumberbatch fellow to stop being so…"

"Inherently sexy, as Stephen Colbert puts it?" suggested John Watson from behind Sherlock, stifling a snigger with a loud spate of coughing.

"Exactly," snarled the dragon. "Have you _seen_ the fanbrats at OFUM? The new ones are just a bunch of squealing little Dwarf-glomping pigs. I'd have set them all on fire, but Miss Cam said that would be counterproductive."

"Piles of ash really don't learn very well," grumbled Bilbo.

"It would have taught them a _lesson_," hissed Smaug, glaring at Bilbo with his eye in a way eerily reminiscent of another Middle-earthian antagonist. "Dragons are not playthings, or joyrides, or –" he cut off suddenly, growling deep in his throat, "_sex toys_."

"I get the feeling we're partially to blame for that," John remarked mildly.

"As John puts it so succinctly, 'we're not a couple'," added Sherlock.

"Get it through their brains that a dragon like myself has better things to do than sleep with hobbits. I've never even met a hobbit until Bilbo; how the hell am I supposed to be sexually attracted to one?"

"Well, it's a good thing you aren't," Bilbo added, going rather pink in the face. "I doubt any respectable hobbit would dare to live with you! Far too much adventure for their digestions, you know."

"I could do with six hearty meals a day," the dragon mused.

Bilbo scoffed. "Hearty in _your_ case means death in the rest of Middle-earth's."

There was a louder, closer scream, and a screech of claws. Moments later, a fangirl dangled outside the window, hoisted by her ankles by Smaug.

"PUT ME DOWN! PUT ME DOWN!" she shouted, hair flying everywhere. "SOMEONE HELP!"

"Who's that?" Bilbo asked, nudging John and Sherlock. Sherlock looked up.

"Oh, that new girl that got transferred in for trying to shoot Irene Adler in her piece," he muttered.

"She's not a Sue, but she is a bona-fide fanbrat," added John. In a louder voice, he added, "Smaug, put her down."

"I'm hungry," protested the dragon.

John groaned, got up from his chair, and crossed the flat to the freezer where Sherlock had stowed an entire human leg. He took it out by the toes and lugged it to the open window, trailing water (and a bit of blood) everywhere.

"You keep body parts with your food?" demanded Bilbo, looking nauseated at the very notion.

John rolled his eyes. "Sherlock's worst habit is not delineating where he puts his things. Don't bother peeking into the good teapot; he's drowned a dormouse in there."

"You can't just toss that leg away; I'm going to use it for an experiment," Sherlock snapped.

John laughed shortly. "Right, because keeping a leg for a week in the freezer's going to make it conducive to science. Get yourself another leg, Sherlock," he growled, before whistling and dangling the leg outside the window. Smaug saw it, and scowled.

"You should heat it up first," he grumbled.

"You're a _big_ fire-breathing dragon. You can heat up your own food," John insisted. "Drop the girl, and you can have the leg."

"But the girl has two legs; wouldn't this be a worse trade-off?"

"I'll feed you the rest of Sherlock's body parts –"

"You'll do _what_?!" squawked Sherlock from behind.

"I'll find you a body from the morgue, then," John amended, "but you have to promise me not to eat anything that can still run away from you."

Smaug glowered at John, but with a sigh he dropped the girl – she crashed into the pavement and took off as soon as she could, screaming in fear – and nipped the leg from John's hands, swallowing it whole.

"Right then," John said, backing away from the window to fetch his jacket. "I'll be back in no time."

"Where're you going?" Sherlock demanded.

"There and back again," snapped John, "to the hospital morgue, of course."

* * *

"It could be because of James Bond, you know," Melissa mused to Rose the next morning over breakfast; students were still placing bets on which fandoms would be involved in the crossover lecture – although it was pretty obvious that _The Hobbit_ would be one of them.

"James Bond?" Rose echoed, frowning. "They had a Bond movie marathon, but…"

"The new Q looks like Sherlock," Melissa pointed out, "with glasses."

Rose sniggered. "Yeah, well, Bruce Banner does, too, and he's got a purple shirt as well."

"Tony Stark_ played _Sherlock, what do you mean –"

"That's not Tony Stark; that's Robert Downey Jr."

"Same thing," snorted Melissa.

Rose paused and considered it. "Point," she conceded. "I think Regina George playing Irene Adler was funnier, though."

"Stephen Fry's the Master of Lake-Town, did you know that?" demanded Anita Granger as she dropped by their table with her mug of coffee. "Mycroft Holmes is the Master of Lake-Town!"

"Ha, no wonder Smauglock burns down Lake-Town. It's not because of the Dwarves; it's because he has a grudge against his brother!"

They laughed at that for a while, but Rose lapsed when she saw Steven Marcus waving at her from the till. She smiled at him brightly, before ducking back into the conversation.

"Seriously though," continued Anita, giggling into her coffee, "Mischa's a bit disappointed that her partner bailed out to go attend the Victorian Baker Street Fanfiction Academy; even though he's a dick, his leaving means she's now paired up with that fanbrat –"

"The one who got roomed with Jinx because her roommate moved out to a single?"

"Yeah, her. They haven't gotten along for a second, her and Jinx."

"Poor Mischa," sighed Melissa. "I heard that Dasha and Sabian are really excited about the Hobbit crossover lecture, though; they're working on something Sabian called… Ringlock, was it?"

"The hell is _that_?" scoffed Rose.

"Sherlock in Middle-earth?"

"Yeah, but… like, is Sherlock Frodo or something?"

"No, he's an Elf. John's a Hobbit. I heard they're going all out and changing the characters' names to Middle-earth names, too."

"What's wrong with their real names?"

"John's not an Anglo-Saxon name?"

"So?"

"So it wouldn't work in Middle-earth because Tolkien focused on non-Romance languages?"

Anita frowned. "Yeah, the Dwarves all have Old Norse names, and the richer Hobbits have Frankish names, and…"

"And what kind of name is Sherlock for an elf? That sort of name probably belongs more with the Brandybucks and Tooks or something."

Rose bit her lip. "I… see what you mean?" she mumbled, shrugging. "I mean, I don't know too much about the details of Lord of the Rings, so…"

Melissa checked the clock at that moment. "Damn, we're going to be late for the lecture if we don't hurry," she snapped, leaping up from the table and taking her tray to the rubbish bin. Rose and Anita hopped up as well, grabbing their backpacks, and the three of them rushed out of Speedy's Café.

* * *

When the three girls took their seats in the lecture hall with the rest of the stragglers, several mini-Hounds glowered at them from the stage and the doorways. Anita cringed, but got out her notebook all the same.

There was a thunderous creak of machinery, and then moments later the curtains behind the lecture stage rose up to reveal Smaug the Dragon, still gnawing on what looked like the flank of a horse. The students quieted quickly.

Smaug fixed them all with a glowing golden-yellow eye, and for a moment Rose felt compelled to listen to the dragon, compelled to get up, walk to the stage, and calmly insert herself into his mouth. From the looks of everyone else in the room, they were all thinking similar things. Ellie Yelsnit had even left her seat and was leaning towards the dragon, eyes wide.

"Okay, cut it out, Smaug, no brainwashing the fanstudents to walk right into your stomach. That's not even fair," came the voice of John Watson as the ex-Army doctor stomped onto the stage, followed by Sherlock Holmes.

"Yes, that eye with that voice; what on earth were they even _thinking_, casting Cumberbatch as you?" sniffed the detective.

"You're basically telling me that you like to listen to the sound of your own voice," snorted Smaug, emitting a small burst of smoke. However, the compelling lure of his gaze receded somewhat, and Rose found herself relaxing into her seat.

Or as relaxed as she could get with a dragon in the room, of course.

There was a long pause, and then John left the stage to talk to someone outside the lecture hall. "You can come in, Greg, we told you Smaug's going to be on his best behaviour."

Moments later, the ex-Army doctor re-entered the lecture hall, holding the hand of one quaking Detective Inspector. Several Johnstrade fans – though they were rather few – cheered. Lestrade levelled them a nasty glare, and they subsided.

"Yes, I'm not going to eat you," snickered Smaug. "Seriously, though, why would I? You probably taste like plastic anorak." He grimaced. "Fanbrats taste better, you know."

A collective shudder ran through the students, and the new fanbrat collapsed in a dead faint.

"We're just waiting on one more person, then," said Lestrade, determinedly avoiding the dragon's amused glance. That one more person chose that moment to show up, strolling onstage with a pastry in his hand and his face smeared with blackberry jam. Some more fangirls swooned.

"Bilbo, Bilbo Baggins! He's only three feet tall! Bilbo, Bilbo Baggins – the bravest little hobbit of them all!" someone shouted in what could very distantly be passed off as song, before practically vaulting herself out of the chair and up the aisle, eyes manic and body ready to glomp –

_BAM!_

A mini-Hound came barrelling out of nowhere, tackling the fangirl to the ground and dragging her off.

"Thank you, Jon!" Bilbo cried as the fangirl's screams receded. He wiped his mouth with a pocket handkerchief. "And just when I thought I'd seen the last of them."

"The_ last_ of them?" squeaked Wymarc Mecham.

"Introductions are in order," Sherlock snapped. "This is the special crossover seminar for Lestrade's class –"

"Beyond the Gaslight –" added Lestrade, still shaking slightly.

"And we were originally going to invite delegates from the Official Fanfiction Academy of Starfleet as well, but some time problems came up and…" John shrugged. "But we do have Bilbo Baggins and Smaug the Dragon from the Official Fanfiction University of Middle-earth here with us today, so if you could give them a round of applause, that'd –"

He was broken off by the sound of wild applause and cheering. Bilbo flushed a brilliant shade of pink. Smaug snorted, before glaring at them all again. The crowd instantly silenced.

"Yes, yes, quiet. Thank you," said John, coughing as Lestrade shuffled the cards. "Well, shall we begin?"

"Sure," replied Bilbo. "All right, now, all of you. How many of you know my story?_ There and Back Again: A Hobbit's Tale_?"

Several hands went up. Bilbo nodded.

"Right, and what about Frodo's story, _The Lord of the Rings_?"

Some other hands went up as well.

"Is it from the books, or the… what did you call them?"

"Films," growled Smaug.

"Yes, films. Raise your hand if you first heard of us through the films."

A few hands went down.

"And through the books?"

Those hands went back up; everyone else put their hands down. Rose, who'd withdrawn her hand, glowered at Melissa, who had her hand raised.

"Right, thank you." Bilbo smiled cheerily. "For those of you who aren't aware, the film version of my story, which is a prequel to Frodo's, is already amongst us. My story details how I, an ordinary Hobbit of the Shire, did something uncharacteristic to most Hobbits and went on an adventure with twelve dwarves and the wizard Gandalf to reclaim gold from the fire-breathing dragon Smaug here." He pointed to Smaug, who huffed in annoyance.

"Those meddlesome dwarves," grumbled the dragon.

"You did do the draconian equivalent of some random stranger barging into someone else's home and declaring that it along with all the possessions inside now belonged to them. It's only natural for the suddenly-displaced people to want to retake it," John replied reasonably.

"Oh come on, it was their fault they paraded about all those glittery shiny things," sniffed the dragon, rearing up slightly so everyone in the hall could be temporarily blinded by stage lights reflecting off his jewelled underbelly.

"How would you like it if I suddenly decided to turf you out of your house and steal your things?" John demanded. He paused. "Wait, isn't that exactly what _The Hobbit_ is all about? My bad."

Several students giggled weakly. Smaug glowered at John in an 'I would eat you, but then that would cause too much bureaucratic paperwork, and I can't even hold a pen to deal with that' sort of way. John smiled innocently.

"Moving on," snapped Sherlock. "Now the reason why _The Hobbit_ is relevant to us is because the actors who play Smaug and me and Bilbo and John are the same."

"And by lesser extent, Mycroft and the Master of Lake-Town. But that's a problem for the 1895 campus," added John.

"This sudden reversal from playing best friends to theoretical enemies may have caused some of you," continued Sherlock, as John made a cough that sounded too much like 'Johnlock' for comfort (according to rumour, just the other day the ex-Army doctor had been prevented from entering his room by a sentient lock shaped like him that kept on demanding a summary of John Locke's theories of social contracts as the passcode. John had found it both annoying and amusing, and was hoping to duplicate the Johnlock to put it as an extra warden for all Staff-only areas.), "to get a little lost along the way."

"And by a little lost, we mean really, really off the track of canon lost," finished John.

"This invisible little riddler of doom has never been and will never be my flatmate, my bodyguard, my moral compass, or my best friend, and especially_ not_ my lover," growled Smaug, prodding Bilbo in the back with a claw. Bilbo turned and glared at him.

"The feeling is definitely mutual, O Smaug of the Hideous Morning-Breath," snapped the hobbit. "I could've sworn you made Sauron faint that one time you ate all of Farmer Maggot's onions for breakfast – I mean, Morgoth was definitely taunting him about it for a week or two afterwards. You should consider seeing one of those newfangled things Miss Cam calls a 'dentist' –"

"Most 'dentists' that Miss Cam referred me to refuse to deal with my teeth," replied the dragon. "The Mouth of Sauron apparently had the same problem back in the day…"

"Yes, well, at least the Mouth of Sauron doesn't threaten the 'dentist' with incinerating or eating them on the spot. You really need to work on that."

"They need to stop scheduling appointments at times when I'm hungry," scoffed Smaug, still gnawing contentedly on his horse flank. Melissa muttered something about silver blazes. Rose frowned in confusion.

"You are_ constantly_ hungry. And I'm a Hobbit, so I think I know what constant hunger looks like."

"Which brings me back to the original point of why can't I adopt the six meal schedule like the rest of you furry-footed midnight snacks," snapped Smaug, belching out a large cloud of sulphur. Several people in the front seats grimaced, and even Rose had to wrinkle her nose at the very distinct scent of rotten eggs wafting from the stage. Sherlock, John, and Lestrade all had conveniently pulled out clothespins for their noses.

"Are you two _quite_ finished with your domestic bickering?" snapped Sherlock.

Bilbo shuffled away from the dragon, shooting him a dirty glare over his back. "Yes, why don't we move on? Can we establish first and foremost that Smaug and I don't get along? He's the antagonist, I'm the protagonist, and there is no way in all of Middle-earth that I would ever consent to having sex with a dragon."

"Or to bring him home."

"Yes, why on earth would I ever, _ever_ bring Smaug back to Bag End with me? First off the entire premise of my story is to _destroy _Smaug because keeping him alive would mean countless deaths for all of Middle-earth –"

"Not to mention that my death was obviously timed by that meddling wizard Gandalf so that the dark lord Sauron wouldn't have me on hand to keep those pesky Elves and Lake-men at bay when he saw fit to expand his domain," added the dragon with a sulphurous yawn.

"Exactly," said Bilbo. "If you bother ever picking up a copy of the books, you'd know that while my nephew was trekking across the southeastern side of Middle-earth, the elf-realms of Mirkwood and Lothlórien were attacked by forces from Dol Guldur, which was Sauron's outpost in the south of Mirkwood. I think the film talks about Dol Guldur in a bit more detail than my book."

"By that time, the Dwarves that had taken my mountain –"

"It was their mountain to begin with, you encroaching lizard," snapped Bilbo.

"Yes, well, with me gone the Dwarves regained their strength there, and were therefore able to help the elves successfully assault Dol Guldur. Now imagine what would have happened if Bilbo, suddenly deciding that I was going to be his new best friend, had my life spared and brought me back to the Shire."

"You were attacking Lake-town at the time. They killed you in self-defence. If I'd spared your life, you'd have burnt down Lake-town and then flown back up to roast yourself twelve Dwarves and a foolish Hobbit. Then in that case, the wargs and goblins from the Misty Mountains would have probably overwhelmed the Mirkwood elves when they came tramping around for blood, and you'd probably let them live nearby because evil attracts evil, and then all of that corner of Middle-earth would've been already within Sauron's grasp when he made his second grab for power."

Rose was feeling very, very lost at all of this, although some of her peers – Melissa, for one – seemed more horrified than confused.

"In brief, though," Bilbo continued, addressing the room at large, "Frodo would have died very quickly if I'd kept Smaug alive, I probably wouldn't have survived to bring the Ring back to the Shire, and then the entire plot of _Lord of the Rings_ would've been rendered moot. Not a fun prospect."

"I am a fire-breathing entity of evil," snapped Smaug. "I'm not Sherlock with extra scales. There's a disconnect between the two of us that has to be recognised, because even though we're both misanthropic geniuses –"

"If you were a genius, you'd cover up that bare patch," said Bilbo _sotto voce_.

"Because even though we have similarities, our biggest difference is that Sherlock is _good_, and I am _bad_," finished the dragon. "If you need a hands-on demonstration, feel free to walk into my mouth."

"Not funny," snapped Lestrade, although he still looked pale as a bleached sheet.

Smaug chuckled darkly. "Going back to the lovers bit – take a look at Bilbo. Now take a look at me."

There was a pause, before Bilbo piped up again. "Pairing off a hobbit with an elf or a human is already bad enough with the height and the breeding equipment, but a hobbit and a dragon? Are you _serious_?"

"We should also clear up the misconception that we fire-drakes are even remotely humanoid. Wrong. No. We are more like winged serpents than anything else. We cannot shapeshift into something humanoid, either. So if your Smauglock looks human, you're doing it wrong."

"Admittedly it's fine to have Sherlock as a dragon-like character in an Alternate Universe – but not when it's set in Middle-earth," amended John. "If you want to use Middle-earth, you play by Middle-earth's rules."

"That includes breeding equipment. Dragons are like lizards and snakes. Last time I checked, I don't have mammalian genitalia. I would probably be concerned if I did." Smaug rolled his eyes and puffed a smoke-cloud of amusement. Bilbo cringed.

"Please, spare us that mental image," grumbled the hobbit as he continued. "Now, to hobbits. Admittedly, John and I have a lot in common – we're both good shots, for one, and we like our creature comforts, and we're loyal to our friends."

"We're what you term…" John frowned. "The extraordinary everyman, wasn't it?"

"Yes, the ordinary fellow who has much more to him than what meets the eye. It's therefore not that hard to blur the lines there, and it's much more reasonable than conflating Smaug with Sherlock."

"Seriously though," said Lestrade, finally finding a moment when his voice was steady enough to speak, "this seminar's not meant to dissuade you from crossing us over with the Tolkienverse. It's just to point out the parts of canon that might come into conflict, and to remind you that you have to play by two sets of rules."

"It's not fair to Middle-earth if you trample over their canon in favour of setting us up as a hobbit-dragon couple," agreed John. "It's disrespectful to all the work Tolkien put into his world."

"It can be done, and it can be done well," agreed Bilbo. "But to do it well you'd have to respect all of us."

"Speaking of respect –" began Smaug, but Bilbo cut him off.

"No, Smaug, we agreed not to feed you until after the class," he snapped.

Smaug twiddled idly with the bones of his horse flank. "That was a foolish agreement. Who made it?"

"You and I," replied the hobbit, crossing his arms.

The dragon growled, and set the horse bones aflame.

* * *

"Well. That was interesting," remarked Sherlock long after the seminar was over, and Bilbo and Smaug had returned to OFUM (Bilbo had to bribe the dragon with more treats in the form of sheep and OFUM fangirls).

"Interesting doesn't even begin to cover the bloody huge dragon we had to live with for a night," growled John. "Or the extra food that Bilbo ate up. How can such a small thing have such a bottomless pit for a stomach?"

"I have no clue," Sherlock replied, lounging upside-down on the couch with his legs dangling in the air.

"Bilbo said you were unnatural for not eating," continued John as he shuffled through the case notes.

"He's a simpleton who's a slave to his own metabolism," retorted Sherlock.

"He's also a cunning riddler and apparently one of the few people at OFUM who can convince Smaug not to eat so much. Poor dragon's not taking resurrection very well."

"That was rather obvious," sniffed Sherlock, "judging by him comfort eating every other minute. I think we'll have to keep the air fresheners at 221B for the rest of the semester – the stench of that dragon's breath was worse than that one time I kept rotten eggs for an experiment –"

"Oh yeah, we had to fumigate the entire flat because of that," groaned John.

"That reminds me: what exactly does OFUM do with the excess dragon dung that must be piling up as a result of Smaug letting himself go?" Sherlock asked, frowning as he steepled his fingers.

"I'd rather not know, actually," John replied, burying his nose into the case files. "Did you see the casebook?"

"Felt it, more like. New canonical details, slight tremor. Nothing too serious, I suppose, except for a definite age for myself, Mycroft, and Moriarty."

"And you need to get better taste in women's magazines."

"_Knitting Weekly_ contains all the wisdom of the universe, John; you wouldn't understand," sniffed the detective as he closed his eyes. "Have we managed to find Miss Dawson yet?"

"No; has she contacted you since the last call?"

Sherlock shook his head. "Time's running out. We're springing the trap on Saturday."

"I can't believe you've roped students into doing it," growled John. "What if one of them gets hurt?"

"Are you saying that you seriously care about that?" scoffed Sherlock. "They're fanbrats. They'd do anything for us."

"That's an abuse of power," snarled John.

Sherlock snorted. "Yes, and making them outrun taxi cabs along Baker Street on Tuesday morning isn't?"

"That's education."

"So is this," replied Sherlock, shrugging.

"I don't see what's so educational about throwing students into the face of dang –" John began, but Sherlock's mobile rang at that moment. Still dangling upside-down from the sofa, the detective pulled out his mobile from his trouser pocket and answered it.

"Sherlock Holmes." There was a pause. "Yes. I see. I'll be there in a bit."

"What?" John asked as Sherlock hung up.

"Lestrade called. Said that Stapleton discovered a girl lying unconscious in a deserted lab area at Baskerville."

"And?"

Sherlock chuckled. "The girl's name is Ava Dawson."


End file.
